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ART  AND 
ENVIRONMENT 


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What  Greek  art  lacked  and 
Medieval  art  contributed 

A  STUDY  BY  V.    DE    HONNECOURT 

Frontispiece  p.  96 


ART  AND 
ENVIRONMENT 

BY 
LISLE  MARCH  PHILLIPPS 


WITH  TWENTY-SIX  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW   YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  CO. 

1914 


> 


/?// 


Published  191 1 
New  Edition,  Revised,  with  Illustrations,  1914 


Printed  in  Gkeat  Britain  by 

BALLANTYNE   AND    COMPANY  ^^^ 

LTD 
AT  THE   BALLANTYNE  PRESS 

Tavistock  Street  Covent  Garden 

London 


PREFACE 

THE  following  chapters  contain  nothing  but  the 
curtest  and  most  summary  outline  of  the  subjects 
they  deal  with.  I  would  remind  the  reader  that,  in 
such  a  survey,  detail  is  out  of  place,  and  that  to  dwell 
on  minute  qualifications  or  partial  exceptions  to  the 
broad  rule  followed  would  merely  tend  to  confusion 
of  thought.  Everything  depends,  in  such  a  bird's- 
eye  view  as  is  here  attempted,  on  whether  the  main 
characteristic  features  have  been  truly  appreciated. 
1  have,  for  example,  signalised  immobility  and  uni- 
formity as  the  characteristics  of  Egyptian  art  among 
the  arts  of  the  world.  If  in  that  I  am  right,  then  it 
appears  to  me  I  must  be  right  also  in  endeavouring 
to  bring  out  these  positive  and  salient  facts  with  all 
available  force,  and  in  declining  to  waste  time  over 
partial  and  temporary  exceptions  which  do  but  con- 
fuse the  main  issue.  To  act  thus  is  not  necessarily 
to  be  uninstructed.  I  am  sufficiently  familiar  with 
the  works  of  Sir  G.  Maspero  and  others  during  recent 
years  to  be  aware  of  some  of  the  slight  divergences 
which  from  time  to  time  occur  in  Egyptian  art,  and 
of  the  differences  which,  as  some  urge,  faintly 
distinguish  the  schools  of  Memphis,  Hermopolis, 
Thebes  and  the  Eastern  Delta.  But  had  these 
trifling  inflections  and  diversities  been  dwelt  upon 


PREFACE 

in  the  two  chapters  given  to  Egyptian  art  what 
would  have  been  the  consequence  ?  The  chief  and 
really  significant  attributes  of  that  art,  its  immobility 
and  uniformity  as  compared  with  other  arts,  would 
have  been  lost  sight  of,  and  the  meaning  of  those 
attributes  and  the  light  they  cast  on  Egyptian 
character  and  civilisation  never  could  have  been 
extracted.  If  what  has  been  stated  is  true ;  if  it  is 
true  that  Egyptian  art  is  unintellectual,  and  that  in 
this  respect  it  is  a  perfect  image  of  Egyptian  life, 
then  it  seems  to  me  that  these  facts  are  of  sufficient 
importance  as  to  justify  precise  statement,  while  to 
entangle  oneself  in  insignificant  distinctions  would 
render  such  statement  impossible. 

The  reader  will,  I  hope,  bear  this  consideration  in 
mind.  It  applies  more  or  less  to  all  the  following 
chapters, to  those  especially  dealing, besides  Egyptian 
art,  with  Greek,  Arab,  Roman  and  Gothic  ;  for  in 
each  of  these  it  has  been  my  endeavour  to  seize  in 
the  art  the  racial  trait,  the  gift  or  characteristic 
contributed  by  that  people,  and  which  embodies 
their  own  racial  temperament,  and  this  has  to  be 
done,  not  by  frittering  away  the  reader's  attention 
over  meaningless  and  purposeless  details,  but  by 
going  straight  to  the  positive,  main  attribute,  and 
sticking  to  that,  and  wringing  the  sense  out  of  that. 

One  chapter  I  ought,  perhaps,  to  have  rewritten ; 
I  mean  the  chapter  dealing  with  Greek  refinements 
in  architecture.  Since  it  was  published  there  has 
appeared  a  book  by  Mr.  Goodyear  which  throws 
new  light  on  the  subject.  Mr.  Goodyear  shows,  by 
illustration  and  argument,  that  the  explanation  of 
vi 


PREFACE 

these  refinements  as  corrections  of  optical  illusions 
is  not  invariably  applicable,  and  cannot  be  advanced 
as  a  final  solution.  I  am  not  sure  that  one  portion 
of  his  reasoning  is  quite  sound.  It  is  scarcely  correct 
to  say  that  Penrose's  view  was  that  these  inflections 
were  designed  as  corrections  '^  of  optical  effects  of 
irregularity/'  and  thence  to  argue  that  a  strict 
mechanical  regularity  must  be  indicated  as  the  ideal 
aimed  at.  What  we  have  to  decide  when  we  find, 
for  instance,  the  Greeks  correcting  a  disagreeable 
effect  of  sagging,  is  whether  they  are  correcting  it 
because  it  was  an  appearance  of  sagging  or  because 
it  was  disagreeable.  If  the  former,  if  they  thought 
merely  of  the  apparent  divergence  from  regularity 
and  wished  to  correct  that,  then  strict  apparent 
regularity  must,  in  their  eyes,  have  been  a  recom- 
mendation. But  if  the  latter,  if  they  corrected  the 
sag  because  it  was  disagreeable  to  look  at,  then  the 
end  in  view  is  not  regularity  but  the  pleasing  of  the 
sense  of  sights 

To  this  latter  view  I  believe  we  shall  more  and 
more  come  in  dealing  with  Greek  art.  Meantime, 
I  have  allowed  my  own  chapter  on  this  subject  to 
stand  for  the  present,  since  as  yet  the  whole  matter 
is  more  or  less  in  a  state  of  flux  and  uncertainty.  In 
that  chapter  I  accept  as  a  working  hypothesis  the 
theory  that  the  Greek  refinements  were  corrections 
of  optical  illusions.  Many  were  so,  no  doubt,  but 
whether  that  was  their  aim  and  object  is  another 
question.  Most  optical  illusions  have  a  weakening, 
deforming  effect  which  is  offensive  to  the  eye,  and 
if  they  were  corrected  on  this  account  it  would  be 

vii 


PREFACE 

quite  misleading  to  say  that  the  Greeks  had  any 
animus  against  optical  illusions  as  such.  What  the 
Greeks  were  after  in  all  cases,  I  believe,  was  the  form 
and  outline  most  pleasing  to  the  eye.  In  the  case, 
for  instance,  of  the  entasis,  or  swelling  of  the  shaft, 
they  were  not  content  to  add  such  a  convexity  as 
would  correct  the  apparent  caving  in  of  a  straight- 
sided  column,  but  to  that  convexity  they  give  such 
a  contour  as  would  but  express  vigour  and  strength, 
and  be  therefore  most  pleasing  as  a  study  of  form. 
This,  no  doubt,  was  their  object  from  the  first.  It 
remains  true,  of  course,  that,  whether  we  make  the 
correction  of  illusion  or  the  search  for  perfect  form 
the  object  in  view,  a  unique  sensitiveness  of  vision 
is  equally  the  indispensable  instrument.  The  reader 
should  make  himself  acquainted  with  Mr.  Goodyear's 
works  on  the  subject. 

L.  MARCH   PHILLIPPS 
Satwell, 

Henley-on-Thames 


viii 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  aim  of  the  present  book  is  easily  explained. 
I  have  made  no  attempt  to  treat  art  from  the 
aesthetic  standpoint,  as  a  realisation  of  the  beauti- 
ful, and  as  controlled  by  principles  which  have  that 
realisation  for  their  object.  My  desire  has  been  to 
confine  myself  to  the  consideration  of  art  as  an 
expression  of  human  life  and  character.  Selecting 
some  of  the  great  periods,  or  creative  epochs,  in  the 
art  of  the  world,  I  have  endeavoured  to  deduce  from 
them  the  distinguishing  qualities,  limitations,  and 
point  of  view  of  the  races  which  produced  them. 

The  note  of  style  which  characterises  such  epochs, 
and  which  declares  itself  in  the  coherence  and  uni* 
formity  of  all  the  aspects  and  details  of  their  art, 
is,  as  we  all  know,  the  natural  effect  of  a  certain 
definiteness  of  inward  thought  and  emotion.  Just  as 
coherent  speech  can  only  result  from  coherent  and 
articulate  thought,  so  too  coherent  art,  which  is  in 
itself  a  kind  of  speech,  can  only  result  from  a  similar 
mental  coherence.  The  more  strongly  this  coher- 
ence, or  note  of  style  as  we  call  it,  is  felt  in  art,  the 
more  will  the  Ufe  of  that  period  be  dominated  by 

ix 


INTRODUCTION 

an  equivalent  order  of  ideas.  Art  is  always  an  ex- 
pression of  life,  but  it  is  in  proportion  as  it  gathers 
into  the  unity  of  a  style  that  it  becomes  expressive 
of  collective  and  social  attributes  in  contradistinction 
to  the  petty  interests  of  an  art  subject  to  individual 
caprices. 

These  moments  then,  the  moment  when  art  is 
harmonised  into  definite  styles,  are  the  moments 
when  it  is  most  charged  and  saturated  with  human 
significance.  It  is  at  these  moments  that  it  incar- 
nates the  spirit  of  its  age,  and  it  is,  therefore,  at  such 
times  that  we  ourselves  may  hope  to  extract  most 
meaning  from  it.  Not  often  are  the  minds  of  men  so 
agreed  as  to  admit  of  such  a  unity  of  expression,  but 
when  the  agreement  takes  place  and  the  great  styles 
arise,  then  there  can  be  found,  as  it  seems  to  me,  no 
other  sort  of  evidence,  or  literary  or  other  record, 
which  can  for  a  moment  compare  in  vividness  with 
the  testimony  of  art.  Not  only  are  the  positive 
qualities  and  what  is  definite  and  determined  in 
racial  character  saliently  depicted,  but,  by  contrast 
with  what  is  given,  what  is  not  given  also — that  is  to 
say,  the  limitations  and  deficiencies  of  such  character 
—are  just  as  clearly  suggested. 

The  interest  I  seek  being  of  this  human  kind,  I 
have  been  led  to  deal  in  the  following  chapters 
chiefly  with  architecture,  for  architecture,  being  the 
most  broadly  human  of  all  the  arts,  is  the  richest  in 
X 


INTRODUCTION 
human  character. ;  In  its  coming  and  going  across 
the  world-stage  each  race — Egyptian  or  Greek, 
Roman  or  Goth  or  Arab — is  represented  by  its  own 
style  of  building,  and  these  styles  arc  so  patently  the 
personification  of  racial  characteristics  that  they 
themselves,  in  their  antagonisms  or  alliances,  seem 
to  possess  a  living  individuality,  and  to  act  over 
again,  in  a  sort  of  stony  Dumb  Crambo,  the  history 
of  their  time.  Even  of  the  issues  of  such  struggles, 
and  of  the  degrees  in  which  each  human  element 
survived  and  influenced  the  rest,  the  record  is 
faithfully  kept  by  succeeding  architecture  in  the 
blending  of  the  structural  traits  proper  to  each 
race. 

If  to  the  study  of  such  subjects  we  would  bring 
nothing  of  our  own  ;  if,  standing  within  the  temple 
or  the  mosque  or  the  minster,  we  would  so  give 
ourselves  to  the  forms  around  us  that  these  should  i 
seem  to  utter  us  as  completely  as  they  once  uttered  \ 
their  builders,  then  we  should  have  attained  to  the 
point  of  view  of  those  vanished  generations  and 
should  see  and  know  them  as  they  are. 

I  do  not  say  this  can  be  done.  I  am  sure  that 
I  have  not  succeeded  in  doing  it^  The  following 
attempted  interpretations  are  sure  to  be  full  of 
defects,  and,  as  is  the  way  of  criticism,  probably 
most  clearly  reveal  their  author's  limitations  when 
they  insist  on  the  limitations  of  others.  Nevertheless 

xi 


INTRODUCTION 

I  cannot  help  feeling  sure  that  art  really  possesses 
this  power  of  instilling  into  us  the  spirit  of  a  past 
time  and  people.  The  treasure  sought  is  there,  and 
if  these  scratchings  fail  to  reveal  the  extent  of  it,  they 
may  perhaps  show  others  where  to  dig  deeper  and 
with  more  success. 

Most  of  the  material  of  this  book  has  appeared  in 
articles  in  the  Edinburgh  and  Contemporary  Reviews, 
and  I  desire  to  express  my  sincere  thanks  to  the 
editors  of  those  periodicals  for  their  kindness  in 
allowing  me  to  make  the  present  use  of  it. 

It  is  difficult,  I  may  add,  when  applying  the  same 
theory  to  various  circumstances,  entirely  to  avoid 
repetition.  I  have  done  my  best  in  this  direction, 
but  where  clearness  of  treatment  seemed  to  demand 
it,  I  have  thought  it  better  to  repeat  myself  than 
risk  obscurity. 

L.  MARCH  PHILLIPPS 
Satwell, 

H  E  NLEY-ON-Th  AMES 


xu 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 

Two  views  of  art  :  Mr.  Blomfield's  estimate  of  Egyptian 
architecture  :  In  what  respects  this  estimate  appears  to  be 
exaggerated  :  Character  of  Egyptian  structural  features  : 
Their  non-intellectual  form  :  The  Egyptian  and  Greek 
column  contrasted  :  The  value  of  Egyptian  architecture 
as  a  comment  on  Egyptian  life  and  character  :  The  for- 
malism of  old  Egypt,  limitations  of  its  civilisation  : 
Religion  :  Literature  :  Science  :  Medicine  :  Its  inability 
to  develop  beyond  the  primitive  phase  :  These  limitations 
reflected  in  art  :  The  power  in  Egyptian  art  of  usage  and 
routine  :  How  in  its  patient  reiteration  of  old  conventions 
it  mirrors  the  life  of  the  Nile  valley  Pp.  1-4 1 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 

The  river's  part  in  Egypt  :  The  art  and  civilisation  of  Egypt 
cast  in  the  same  mould  as  the  country  :  Dependence  of 
Egypt  on  the  Nile  :  Character  of  that  dependence  :  Nil6 
fertilisation  and  Nile  rule  :  All  occupations,  all  hopes  and 
fears  dominated  by  the  Nile  :  The  labours  of  the 
Egyptians  regulated  by  its  movements  from  month  to 
month  :  It  turns  life  into  the  repetition  of  a  perpetual 
formula  :  Compare  the  rival  river-civilisation  of  Assyria : 
The  similarity  in  circumstances  and  routine  of  life  : 

xiii 


CONTENTS 

Similarity  also  in  art  :  Limitations  of  Assyrian  and 
Egyptian  art  identical  :  Each  stops  at  the  point  where 
intellect  should  exert  its  informing  power  :  It  is  so,  too, 
in  life  and  character  :  The  influences  which  dominate 
Egypt  focussed  in  her  temples  Pp.  42-73 


CHAPTER  III 
ENTER  THE  GREEK 

The  new  factor  at  work  :  The  movement  in  Greek  archaic  art 
an  intellectual  movement  :  The  Greek  point  of  view  : 
Intellectual  bias  of  the  Greek  mind  :  In  what  respects 
sculpture  is  calculated  to  express  that  bias  :  The  Greek 
instinct  for  definition  :  Its  restrictions  and  limitations  : 
Greek  religion  :  The  Greek  idea  of  death  :  Gods  and 
tombs  :  Greek  poetry  :  Analogy  between  Myron  and 
iEschylus,  Phidias  and  Sophocles  :  What  Greek  art 
cannot  give  Pp.  74-98 


CHAPTER  IV 

WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 

Greek  and  Gothic  art  compared  :  Gothic  architecture  a 
picture  of  contemporary  Hfe :  Aloofness  of  the  Doric  temple 
from  such  life  :  What  hold  had  it  on  Greek  life  ?  :  The 
aesthetic  sense  as  a  source  of  ideas  :  Proportion,  harmony, 
unity  at  once  aesthetic  and  ethical  principles  :  Similarity 
between  the  eye  and  the  mind  :  Hence  possibility  of 
appealing  to  the  mind  through  the  eye — e.g.  an  image  of 
harmony,  unity,  &c.,  presented  to  the  eye  will  stimulate  a 
mental  recognition  of  those  principles  -  Use  the  Greeks, 
made  of  this  thought  :  Doric  architecture  an  embodiment 
of  the  ethical  conceptions  which  governed  Greek  life 

Pp.  99-123 


XIV 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  V 

THE  LAST  WORD  IN  CLASSIC 
ARCHITECTURE 

Santa  Sophia  :  In  what  the  building  is  unique  :  Its  vindica- 
tion of  the  idea  of  arch  construction  :  Romans  had 
misused  that  principle :  The  Roman  jumble  of  arcuated  and 
trabeated  construction  :  The  Greeks  deliver  the  arch  from 
this  confusion  and  proceed  to  develop  its  intrinsic  possi- 
biUties  :  Santa  Sophia  is  the  result :  It  is  rather  to  be 
looked  upon  as  the  last  word  on  classic  building  than  as 
the  inauguration  of  a  new  style  :  Though  commonly 
regarded  as  the  type  of  Byzantine  it  does  not  pursue  the 
Byzantine  ideal  :  It  is  not  an  architecture  of  colour  nor 
in  agreement  with  other  Byzantine  buildings  in  its  mode 
of  exhibiting  colour  :  It  is  animated  rather  by  the  old 
imperial  spirit  of  amplitude  and  order,  but  it  expresses  its 
idea  with  a  new  logic  and  power  :  All  that  Roman  archi- 
tecture tried  to  be  and  could  not  is  attained  in  Santa 
Sophia  :  As  a  summing  up  of  the  classical  era  it  is  a  signal 
illustration  of  the  part  which  the  Greek  genius  had 
played  in  that  era  Pp.  124-146 

CHAPTER  VI 
THE  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE 

Arab  architecture  as  a  presentment  of  Arab  character :  Living 
qualities  of  the  race  :  Its  terrific  energy  combined  with 
fickleness  and  instability  :  All  Arab  enterprise  to  this 
day  marked  by  same  combination  :  Arab  war  :  Arab 
science  and  scholarship  and  civilisation  generally  :  Their 
rapid  but  evanescent  achievements  :  Testimony  of  their 
buildings  :  Their  hatred  of  all  steadfast  and  stable  forms : 
Fate  of  the  round  arch  in  their  hands  :  Their  destructive 
impulse  :  Their  inability  to  construct  :  Their  tendency  to 
the  fantastic  and  whimsical  :  The  structural  forms  of 
Arab  buildings  are  the  racial  traits  in  their  living  image 

Pp.  147-167 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VII 
THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

The  energy  of  Gothic  architecture  and  in  what  that  energy 
consists  :  The  side-thrust  of  the  arch  :  Its  unsleeping 
activity  :  The  Gothic  delight  in  this  characteristic  :  The 
eagerness  with  which  the  Gothic  races  exhibited  and 
enhanced  by  all  possible  means  the  activity  of  the  arch 
principle  :  Loftiness  of  their  vaults  :  Dangerous  character 
of  side-thrusts  which  they  provoked  and  met  :  Buttresses 
and  flying  buttresses  :  The  visible  conflict  betwixt  stone 
and  human  energy  :  Participation  of  Gothic  detail  in  the 
structural  motive  :  Ribs,  mouldings,  &c.,  used  to  indicate 
the  arch  pressures  and  explain  to  the  eye  how  they 
converge  and  how  they  are  withstood  :  This  structural 
activity  the  image  of  a  racial  activity  :  Part  played  by 
the  Gothic  race  :  Roman  apathy  :  The  quickening  and 
vitalising  influence  of  the  barbarian  invasions  :  The 
Gothic  ideal  in  life  :  The  revitalising  of  the  old  Roman 
system  was  the  cardinal  event  in  post-classic  life  :  How 
it  worked  out  and  formed  the  basis  of  the  national 
system  :  How  having  worked  itself  out  in  life  it  was  ripe 
to  embody  itself  in  art  :  The  twelfth  century  in  England 
and  France  :  The  moment  of  triumph  of  the  Gothic  ideal : 
That  triumph  in  all  its  completeness  depicted  in  Gothic 
architecture  Pp.  168-206 

CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  vertical  and  horizontal  styles  of  architecture  :  What 
they  stand  for  :  Energy  idealised  in  the  twelfth  century  : 
Chivalry,  ballad  poetry,  crusades,  Gothic  architecture  : 
Break-up  of  the  system  before  advance  of  intellect  : 
The  classic  note  in  architecture  :  Its  breadth  :  Corre- 
spondence of  the  quality  with  classic  intellectualism  : 
Spaciousness  of  classic  thought  and  classic  buildings  : 
Survival  of  this  trait  among  Latin  races  :  Italy's  reception 

xvi 


CONTENTS 

of  the  Gothic  style  :  Consistency  of  her  criticism  :  She 
insists  on  horizontal  expansion  :  Rejects  (Gothic  as 
inadequate  to  intellectual  ideas  :  Revives  classic  pro- 
portions as  more  appropriate  :  The  case  of  France  :  In- 
tellectual awakening  there,  too,  followed  by  adoption  of 
spacious  forms :  The  Renaissance  in  England  :  Its  insular 
character  :  The  expansion  or  contraction  of  architecture 
expresses  the  play  of  the  mind  of  Europe       Pp.  «07-24i 


CHAPTER  IX 
SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 

Breakdown  of  classic  intellectualism  :  West  and  East  in 
contact  :  The  West  imbibes  the  Eastern  thought  of 
spiritual  vision  :  Effect  seen  in  Hellenistic  sculpture  : 
Character  of  that  sculpture  :  Its  now  indefinite  hopes 
and  fears  :  Loss  of  the  old  serenity  and  calm  :  Parallel 
between  Hellenistic  and  Renaissance  art  :  The  Floren- 
tine intellectualism  :  The  presence  of  a  spiritual  religion  in 
the  midst  of  it  :  Consequent  inability  to  realise  the  classic 
ideal :  Savonarola  :  His  teaching  and  influence  :  Lorenzo 
the  Magnificent  :  Blending  of  spiritual  and  pagan 
motives  :  Michelangelo  :  The  conflict  in  his  art  between 
the  act  of  definition  and  thought  which  refuses  definition  : 
He  expresses  the  conflicting  ideals  of  his  age 

Pp.  3425-265 


CHAPTER  X 

PAINTING  AND  THE  INTELLECTUAL 

MOVEMENT 

Manual  dexterity  of  modern  art  :  Consequent  superabun- 
dance and  confusion  of  subject-matter  :  Contrast  with 
earlier  creative  epochs  :  These  were  protected  from 
redundancy  by  their  own  ignorance  :  They  had  not  our 
fatal  executive  facility  :  Course  of  Italian  painting  from 
Giotto  to  Raphael  :  Development  of  painting  keeps  pace 

xvii 


CONTENTS 

with  intellectual  development  :  The  new  precision  and 
accuracy  of  intellectual  vision  :  Seeing  with  the  mind  : 
Need  of  this  in  order  to  realise  and  represent  naturally  : 
By  what  degrees  the  eyes  of  men  during  the  Renaissance 
were  opened  :  Man  himself  the  centre  of  the  movement  : 
Renaissance  art  realises  first  man,  then  man's  handiwork, 
and  finally  nature  :  It  keeps  pace  in  its  progress  with  the 
intellectual  advance  of  the  age  Pp.  266-284 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 

The  question  of  style  :  Style  in  French  furniture  :  What  con- 
stitutes it  :  The  luxury  of  this  furniture  its  sole  reason  for 
existence  :  French  society  in  the  age  of  Louis  XV.  : 
Luxury  and  frivolity  the  governing  motives  of  its  every 
action  :  Aspect  of  France  and  of  French  policy  in  that 
age  :  French  colonisation  in  the  East  and  West :  French 
campaigns  :  Decline  of  the  military  spirit  :  The  reign  of 
corruption  :  Diderot  and  the  Encyclopaedists  :  The 
seriousness  of  the  Court  etiquette  :  Total  severance  of 
French  aristocratic  life  from  all  real  practical  considera- 
tions :  Its  approaching  doom  and  the  terror  that  hangs 
over  it  :  The  visible  manifestation  of  these  ideas 
embodied  in  its  characteristic  art  Pp.  285-316 

SUMMARY  Pp.  317-327 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  Pp.  3^8-343 


XVI 11 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

What  Greek  Art  lacked  and   Medieval   Art 

CONTRIBUTED  Fr*Htispi$ct 

Egyptian  Columns  a;nd  Capitals  la 

Apollo.    Archaic  Greek  76 

Tomb  of  Hegeso  87 

Gothic  Tomb  8g 

Parthenon  Frieze  92 

Temple  of  Theseus  116 

Acropolis  ia« 

St.  Sophia  X38 

Great  Mosque  of  Kairwan  (Arcades)  x6a 

Great  Mosque  of  Kairwan  (Interior)  163 

Sahara  Village  164 

Interior  of  Mosque.    Cordova  i6d 

Reims  Cathedral  174 

Beauvais  Cathedral.    Apse  176 

French  Gothic  Choir  aoo 

Vault  of  Exeter  Cathedral  204 

Warrior's  Head  (late  Greek)  248 

Miracle  of  the  Rain  250 
Gothic  Sculpture,  Detail  of  Head  from  Reims 

Cathedral  254 

Visitation,  Luca  della  Robbia  256 

Michelangelo.    Portrait  260 

Detail  from  Monument  of  Lorenzo  (i)  262 

Detail  fro^  Sistine  Chapel  (n)  262 

Detail  from  Sistine  Chapel  (i)  264 

Adam  and  Eve  (n)  264 

The  Author  has  to  thank  Mr.  B.  T.  Batsford  frr 
permissitn  to  include  among  the  illustrations  the  two 
f  holographs  of  Greek  temples  which  are  taken  from. 
"  The  Architecture  of  Greece  and  Rome''  by  IV,  /, 
Anderson  and  R.  Pheni  Spiers. 
The  drawing  of  Santa  Sophia  is  reproduced  from 
Blomfields*' Studies  in  Architecture"  by  permission 

of  Mr.  y,  B.  Fulton  and  Messrs.  Macmillan.  ^cjx 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 

Two  views  of  art  :  Mr.  Blomfield's  estimate  of  Egyptian 
architecture  :  In  what  respects  this  estimate  appears  to  be 
exaggerated  :  Character  of  Egyptian  structural  features  : 
Their  non-intellectual  form  :  The  Egyptian  and  Greek  column 
contrasted  :  The  value  of  Egyptian  architecture  as  a  comment 
on  Egyptian  life  and  character  :  The  formalism  of  old  Egypt, 
limitations  of  its  civilisation  :  Religion  :  Literature  :  Science  : 
Medicine  :  Its  inability  to  develop  beyond  the  primitive 
phase  :  These  limitations  reflected  in  art  :  The  power  in 
Egyptian  art  of  usage  and  routine  :  How  in  its  patient 
reiteration  of  old  conventions  it  mirrors  the  life  of  the 
Nile  valley 

RESULTS  of  two  very  different  kinds  may  be 
obtained  from  the  study  of  art.  Either  we  may 
obtain  an  insight  into  the  laws  and  principles  of  art 
itself,  or  we  may  obtain  an  insight  into  the  lives  and 
characters  of  those  by  whom  the  art  was  evolved. 
Unity,  symmetry,  proportion,  the  subordination  of 
the  parts  to  the  whole  are  among  the  ideas  asso- 
ciated with  the  former,  the  aesthetic  point  of  view, 
while  the  relations  of  man  to  his  Maker,  his  mental 
development,  and  the  occupations  and  pursuits  of 
his  daily  life  are  among  the  ideas  belonging  to  the 
latter,  or  human  point  of  view.  The  two  sets 
of  ideas  are  quite  distinct.  It  is  not  every  school 
of  art  which  possesses  any  definite  aesthetic  sig- 
nificance at  all.  Not  many  races  have  seriously 
considered    the  problems  of   unity,  symmetry  and 

A 


•:;;::V:::  T^  WORKS  OF  MAN 
proportion,  and  in  the  works  of  not  many  races  are 
the  answers  to  such  problems  embodied.  On  the 
other  hand,  be  the  aesthetic  value  of  any  kind  of  art 
what  it  may,  its  human  interest  is  an  assured  factor. 
This  is  always  present :  nor,  perhaps,  will  it  be 
found  that  there  ever  survives  to  later  generations 
a  more  graphic  and  convincing  record  of  the  life  of 
past  races  and  ages  than  is  contained  in  the  charac- 
teristic art  through  which  that  Hfe  was  uttered. 

We  may  go  even  a  step  farther.  Not  only  are 
these  rival  interests  in  art  often  disjoined  and 
opposed  to  each  other,  but  it  happens  frequently 
that  what  we  must  admit,  from  the  aesthetic  stand- 
point, to  be  the  defects  and  blemishes  of  a  style 
will  be  actually  the  chief  source  of  its  human 
interest  and  significance.  No  one,  for  example, 
would,  I  suppose,  deny  that  the  restless  and  fan- 
tastic impulses  of  Arab  architecture,  rendered  as 
they  are  in  bad  brickwork  or  crumbling  masonry, 
are,  aesthetically  speaking,  a  defect  and  a  blemish  ; 
but,  at  the  same  time,  no  one  can  consider  the  style 
as  an  embodiment  of  the  Arab  character  and  tem- 
perament without  being  led  to  perceive  that  all  that 
is  most  lifelike  and  convincing  in  its  interpretation 
consists  in  those  very  qualities  which  are  an 
esthetic  disfigurement.  This  being  so,  it  is  evi- 
dently the  first  condition  of  sane  criticism  to  dis- 
tinguish clearly  between  methods  of  analysis  which 
yield  such  totally  different  results.  We  must  know 
in  what  sense  we  are  to  understand  the  critic's 
language,  and  whether  the  return  yielded  by  the  art 
in  question  is  in  the  nature  of  aesthetic  pleasure  or 
human  interest.     Yet  this  necessary  condition  of 


THE  TEMPLEwS  OF  EGYPT 
sane  criticism  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  very  rarely 
attended  to.  I  could  point  out  to  the  reader  at 
least  fifty  books  on  Gothic  architecture  the  greater 
number  of  which,  so  far  from  attempting  to  dis- 
criminate between  the  interest  of  the  style  as  a 
record  of  mediaeval  life  and  its  value  as  an  embodi- 
ment of  aesthetic  laws  and  principles,  mix,  involve, 
and  transpose  the  two  kinds  of  criticism  in  such  a 
way  that  the  merits  of  one  kind  often  come  out,  by 
a  sort  of  jugglery,  as  the  merits  of  the  other.  The 
result  of  this  confusion  usually  is,  that  not  only  is 
aesthetic  language  more  than  ever  obscured  but 
that  the  especial  merit  and  use  of  the  art  dealt  with, 
as  a  vigorous  representation  of  life,  is  also  hidden 
from  us.  To  praise  a  thing  for  what  it  has  not  got 
is  the  surest  way  of  hiding  from  us  what  it  has  got. 
Led  off  on  a  false  scent  we  lose  sight  of  what  the 
subject  really  has  to  offer,  and  by  the  time  w^e  have 
discovered  that  its  aesthetic  pretensions  are  more  or 
less  of  a  myth,  we  have  forgotten  that  it  ever  had 
any  other  claim  to  our  notice. 

In  a  collection  of  lectures  recently  published  by 
Mr.  Blomfield,  under  the  title  of  "The  Mistress 
Art,"  there  occurs  an  analysis  of  Egyptian  archi- 
tecture which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  prone  to  fall 
into  this  error  of  praising  on  the  wrong  grounds. 
Mr.  Blomfield  is  well  known  as  one  who  writes,  not 
only  with  technical  knowledge  but  thoughtfully 
and  suggestively,  on  architectural  matters.  There  is 
the  less  need,  therefore,  to  say  that  the  essays  form- 
ing the  present  volume  are,  in  general,  full  of  ideas 
which  will  repay  a  careful  study.  This  being  pre- 
mised, I  may  pass  at  once  to  the  point  I  desire  to 

3 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
examine.  Mr.  Blomfield  treats  Egyptian  architec- 
ture as  a  style  of  first-rate  aesthetic  excellence  and 
power.  Nothing  is  said  of  any  other  interest  it 
may  possess;  but  it  is,  we  are  given  clearly  to 
understand,  in  what  it  attains  to  as  an  expression 
of  aesthetic  laws  and  principles  that  its  main  value 
for  us  consists.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  process 
of  reasoning  should  be  reversed.  It  appears  very 
doubtful  whether  Egyptian  architecture,  or  Egyp- 
tian art  in  general,  was  based  on  any  clear  knowledge 
of  aesthetic  principles,  and  whether,  consequently, 
it  has  any  aesthetic  teaching  to  communicate  to 
us.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Egyptian  temples 
have  little  aesthetic  value,  they  have  another  merit 
of  almost  equal  consequence.  They  shed  an 
extraordinarily  vivid  light  not  only  on  the  daily 
lives  and  habits  of  the  Egyptians  but  on  their 
characters  and  on  their  mental  attributes  and  limi- 
tations. They  enable  us  in  some  degree  to  realise 
what  we  may  call  the  Egyptian  point  of  view,  and 
perhaps  even  to  allocate  to  the  Nile  civilisation  its 
approximate  place  among  the  civilisations  of  the 
world.  This  interpretative  interest  Egyptian  art,  and 
more  particularly  Egyptian  architecture,  possesses, 
and  this  interest  Mr.  Blomfield's  aesthetic  treatment 
of  the  subject  tends  inevitably  to  obscure. 

Let  us,  to  begin  with,  see  what  it  is  exactly  that 
Mr.  Blomfield  finds  in  Egyptian  architecture.  He 
treats  the  subject  in  a  chapter  entitled  "The  Grand 
Manner,"  and  in  this  chapter  the  Nile  temples  are 
coupled  and  equalled  with  the  Doric  temple  of  the 
Greeks  in  the  degree  and  kind  of  aesthetic  insight 
they  exhibit.    We  know  what  the  qualities  are  which 

4 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
the  champions  of  the  grand  manner  have  always 
claimed  for  it ;  they  are  the  great  classic  qualities 
of  unity,  proportion  and  the  subordination  of  the 
parts  to  the  whole  design.  These  are  the  merits 
Mr.  Blomfield  finds  in  the  Egyptian  style.  He 
praises  it  for  "  the  lessons  it  teaches  of  finely  con- 
sidered mass,  and  of  the  effect  to  be  got  by  the 
simplest  form  of  construction  properly  handled." 
He  alludes  to  a  *'  central  idea "  which  "  is  never 
sacrificed  to  detail,  but  serenely  maintains  its  sway, 
undisputed  and  irresistible."  It  is  here  that  he  finds 
the  analogy  between  the  Egyptian  and  Greek  styles, 
"  this  architectonic  quality,  this  perfect  instinct  for 
organic  design,"  being  the  attribute  common  to  both. 
The  same  profound  intellectual  insight,  according  to 
Mr.  Blomfield,  directs  the  Egyptian  artists  in  their 
elaboration  of  detail  and  application  of  ornament. 
^The  carving  is  of  admirable  low  relief,  firm  in  out- 
line and  consummate  in  drawing,  but  reduced  to 
the  most  abstract  expression  in  modelling."  He 
adds,  what  would  seem  a  natural  conclusion,  that 
"such  skill  was  only  possible  to  artists  steeped  in 
an  immemorial  tradition  of  art,  and  intent  on  the 
expression  of  a  great  monumental  theme."  Finally, 
he  concludes  with  the  tribute,  the  highest  attainable 
by  the  most  intellectualised  of  the  arts,  that  "not 
the  least  remarkable  characteristic  of  Egyptian  art 
is  the  stringent  logic  that  governed  it  in  every 
detail." 

This  is  high  praise,  higher  praise,  so  far  as  I 
know,  than  has  ever  yet  been  vouchsafed  to  the 
buildings  of  Egypt.  At  the  same  time  it  is  definite 
praise.     Mr.  Blomfield  does  not  admire   Egyptian 

5 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

architecture  for  those  vague  picturesque  effects 
which  are  common  in  the  massive  and  archaic 
structures  of  primitive  races,  and  which,  as  we  feel, 
however  striking  in  their  way,  are  accidental  rather 
than  consciously  thought  out.  The  grandeur  of 
Karnak  to  Mr.  Blomfield  is  not  a  bit  the  grandeui 
of  Stonehenge.  The  Egyptian  genius  is  made  out 
to  be  as  essentially  intellectual  as  the  Greek.  Such 
phrases  as  "finely  considered,"  a  "central  idea," 
forms  "  properly  handled,"  a  faculty  for  "  organic 
design,"  a  sense  of  "stringent  logic,"  and  so  on, 
conclusively  prove — indeed  it  is  the  drift  of  the 
whole  lecture — that  in  the  author's  estimation 
Egyptian  artists  grasped  their  purpose  and  foresaw 
results  with  clear,  intellectual  vision.  Karnak  is 
instanced  as  the  Egyptian  Parthenon.  To  the 
present  writer,  reflecting  on  Mr.  Blomfield's  praises 
of  the  building  for  clear-thoughted  larticulation  and 
knowledge  of  the  effect  to  be  produced,  there  cannot 
but  recur  the  recollection  of  repeated  visits  once 
paid  to  this  colossal  shrine,  visits  which  served  to 
confirm  a  slow-grown  suspicion  that  Egyptian  art 
contained  in  truth  nothing  intellectual,  that  its 
massiveness  was  a  triumph  of  matter  over  mind,  and 
its  power  the  power  of  blind  routine.  In  place, 
however,  of  my  own  opinion  let  me  quote  on  this 
point  a  remark  or  two  from  the  criticism  of  a 
recognised  and  high  authority.  Mr.  Blomfield  extols 
Karnak's  grandiose  simplicity,  its  carefully  con- 
sidered scheme  and  the  cumulative  effect  of  its  halls 
and  colonnades.  He  represents  to  our  imagination 
— it  belongs  to  his  intellectual  estimate  of  the  style — 
a  master  intellect  brooding  over  the  whole  design 

6 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
and  directing  it  all  to  the  embodiment  of  a  single 
idea.  Herr  Erman,  on  the  contrary,  observes  that 
"  the  fact  that  the  plans  of  the  temples  seem  to  us 
most  complicated  arises  from  the  circumstance  that 
they  were  not  built  from  one  design.  Temples 
such  as  Luxor,  or  more  particularly  Karnak,  owe 
the  development  of  their  plan  to  the  many  hands 
which  have  worked  at  them.  Each  king,  fired  with 
ambition  to  build,  designed  some  new  addition  to 
the  temple  of  the  Theban  Amon ;  he  wished  his 
plan  if  possible  to  surpass  any  previous  project,  but 
it  was  granted  to  few  to  complete  the  work  they 
had  designed.  Thothmes  I.  erected  his  pylon  at 
Karnak  and  thought  thus  to  have  completed  the 
fagade  for  ever ;  he  also  began,  but  never  finished, 
those  splendid  buildings  intended  to  meet  this 
fa9ade,  and  to  unite  the  great  temple  with  the 
temple  of  Mut.  Amenhotep  IH.  spoilt  this  plan 
by  adding  another  pylon  in  front,  and  the  kings  of 
the  nineteenth  dynasty  went  so  far  as  to  place  their 
gigantic  hypostyle  hall  before  this  latter  pylon,  so 
that  the  fa9ade  of  the  eighteenth  dynasty  was  left  in 
the  very  centre  of  the  temple ;  a  new  pylon  (the 
fourth),  greater  than  any  other,  formed  the  entrance. 
Incredible  as  it  may  appear,  the  temple  was  not  yet 
complete  ;  when  Rameses  III.  built  his  little  temple 
to  the  Theban  gods,  he  placed  it,  in  part,  close  in 
front  of  the  fagade  of  the  great  temple.  Afterwards 
the  Libyan  princes  felt  it  their  duty  to  build  an 
immense  hall  of  pillars  in  front  again,  which, 
curiously  enough,  happened  exactly  to  cross  the 
temple  of  Rameses  III.  If  we  consider  that  at  the 
same  time  similar  additions  were  made  to  the  back 

7 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
of  the  temple  and  to  the  interior,  we  gain  a  slight 
idea  of  the  extreme  confusion  of  the  whole/' 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  any  ordered  and  cumula- 
tive effect  can  result  from  such  a  chaos  as  this. 
Where  there  is  no  unity  of  intention  there  can  be 
no  unity  of  result. 

Like  all  intensely  materialistic  races,  the  Egyptians 
were  immensely  impressed  by  mere  bulk  and  extent. 
It  was  in  the  knowledge  how  to  animate  that  bulk 
with  an  intellectual  expression  that  they  failed,  and 
in  this  respect  the  most  characteristic  of  all  their 
productions  is,  no  doubt,  the  pyramids.  It  would 
probably  not  be  possible  to  find  on  the  earth's  sur- 
face buildings  so  vast  yet  so  vacant  of  expression  of 
any  kind.  They  do  not  even  express  their  own 
size,  for  the  pyramidal  or  triangular  outline  carries 
the  eye  to  its  apex  with  such  instant  rapidity  that 
the  passage  thereto  seems  no  distance  at  all ;  and 
so,  though  we  tell  ourselves  that  the  Great  Pyramid 
covers  thirteen  acres  and  is  taller  than  the  dome  of 
St.  Peter's,  though  we  walk  round  it  and  painfully 
climb  up  it,  and  impress  by  all  means  its  bulk  upon 
our  minds,  yet  as  an  object  of  sight  the  building  does 
not  remain  in  the  memory  as  of  any  considerable 
size.  The  idea  of  the  pyramid  suggests  not  great- 
ness but  a  point,  and  is  adequately  represented  by 
its  image  on  a  post  card.  If  it  leave  a  further  im- 
pression on  the  mind,  it  must  be  one  of  wonder 
at  the  dullness,  amounting,  it  would  seem,  to  the 
atrophy  of  the  intellectual  faculties,  which  it  indicates 
as  characteristic  of  its  builders.  A  uniform,  solid 
triangle  of  masonry,  mechanically  accurate  and 
utterly  expressionless  in  its  dead  monotony,  without 
8 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
any  intelligible  purpose,  as  is  now  admitted,  save 
the  stupid  and  ignoble  one  of  hiding  a  wretched 
corpse  within  its  bowels — that,  I  believe,  is  an 
architectural  phenomenon  absolutely  without  a 
parallel.  It  is  true  that  the  fine  cutting  and  fitting 
of  the  masonry  indicate  qualities  which  have  always 
been  the  basis,  as  it  were,  of  great  structural  effects. 
But  they  have  been  a  foundation  only.  Perfect 
masonry  represents  a  skill  of  the  hand  which  must 
be  directed  by  thought  to  great  designs,  but  which 
in  the  present  case  is  not  so  directed. 

It  is  important  to  remember,  when  we  are  con- 
sidering Egyptian  art,  that  there  is  a  primitive 
simplicity  as  well  as  an  intellectual  simplicity.  The 
pyramids  are  simple,  more  simple  even  than  the 
temples  ;  but  theirs  is  not  the  Greek  simplicity. 
It  does  not  arise  from  a  keen  perception  of  the 
significance  of  a  structural  principle  and  a  resolve 
to  extract  from  it  its  full  emphasis  and  power,  but 
merely  denotes  a  mind  barren  of  ideas  and  content 
with  its  barrenness.  The  Greeks  discarded  irrele- 
vancies  and  conflicting  theories,  and  reduced 
construction  to  its  simplest  law,  because  they 
realised  that  the  great  aesthetic  effects  of  unity, 
symmetry  and  proportion  depend,  in  the  last 
resort,  on  singleness  of  structural  idea.  They 
selected  the  column  and  lintel  as  their  structural 
idea,  and  worked  out  from  it  results  in  the  way 
of  unity,  symmetry  and  proportion  which  they 
expressed  with  an  intellectual  subtlety  and  refine- 
ment never  before  or  since  equalled.  But  it  is, 
of  course,  quite  possible  that  the  column-and-lintel 
principle  should  be  adopted  and  persisted  in  for 

9 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
centuries,  not  from  any  perception  of  its  aesthetic 
possibilities,  but  merely  because  it  happens  to  be 
the  most  obvious  of  all  means  of  construction.  It 
was  thus  Egypt  used  it.  The  Egyptian  builders 
remained  ,  faithful  to  their  principle,  but  it  never 
was,  for  them,  a  source  of  inspiration  and  thought ; 
nor  did  it  ever  occur  to  them  apparently  to  develop 
the  aesthetic  possibilities  latent  within  it.  The  dis- 
tended and  bloated-looking  columns,  the  squat  and 
stunted  architraves  of  the  Egyptian  temples,  are 
related  by  no  law  of  proportion.  They  are  forms 
which  have  not  reached  the  state  of  development 
at  which  aesthetic  expression  becomes  possible. 
The  old  sense  of  a  fixed  limitation,  of  an  art  held 
for  ever  in  leading-strings,  recurs  again.  The  fine 
qualities  Mr.  Blomfield  discerns  in  Egyptian  archi- 
tecture ought,  indeed,  to  be  there,  for  they  are  the 
proper  fruit  of  the  simple  law  of  construction  on 
which  the  style  is  based ;  but,  unfortunately,  the 
capacity  necessary  to  draw  them  out  was  lacking. 
The  Egyptian  simplicity  is  really  not  of  the  intel- 
lectual but  of  the  primitive  order.  It  is  the  effect 
not  of  clear  thought  but  of  absence  of  thought. 
If  the  Egyptians  were  well  content  to  go  on  loading 
their  bulky  shafts  with  bulky  architraves,  it  was  not 
because  they  derived  from  the  practice  any  kind  of 
intellectual  satisfaction,  but  because  they  were  quite 
content  to  go  without  any  such  satisfaction.  Under 
the  dominion  of  an  inflexible  routine,  incapable  of 
initiation  because  incapable  of  thought,  the  Egyptian 
architects  perpetuated  for  thousands  of  years  a  style 
which  testifies  convincingly  to  the  low  stage  of 
intellectual  development  attained  by  the  race. 

lO 


Observe^  not  bulbous  forms  of  shafts  only,  but  hankerifig  after 
water  plants  and  buds  used  as  capitals  and  decoratively 


A  lo 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
These,  however,  are  general  arguments,  and  as 
such  they  yield  indefinite  results.  I  must  approach 
closer  to  the  subject  and  lay  hold  of  it  by  a  con- 
crete fact  if  I  am  to  carry  the  reader  with  me  in  my 
interpretation  of  Egyptian  art.  This  can  be  done. 
It  is  a  convenient  characteristic  of  trabeated  archi- 
tecture that  the  column,  being  of  such  an  over- 
whelming importance  in  it  and  attracting  careful 
treatment  proportionate  to  its  conspicuousness, 
should  become,  as  it  were,  the  touchstone  of  the 
style  it  appears  in,  and  should  sufficiently  sum  up 
its  general  character  and  level  of  attainment. 
There  could  be  no  more  convincing  testimony  to 
the  intellectual  character  of  Greek  architecture 
than  the  form  and  contour  of  a  Doric  shaft ;  and  if 
Egyptian  architecture  were  the  intellectual  product 
Mr.  Blomfield  supposes,  the  fact  is  sure  to  be 
revealed  in  the  form  given  to  the  chief  supporting 
members  of  that  architecture. 

To  the  Egyptian  column,  then,  we  will  have 
recourse ;  but  before  doing  so  let  me  remind  the 
reader  of  the  simple  law  which,  in  so  far  as  archi- 
tectural forms  are  intelligible  to  us  at  all,  directs  their 
development.  This  law  is  to  the  effect  that  struc- 
tural forms  must  be  the  expression  of  the  structural 
purpose  they  fulfil.  Whatever  the  purpose  may  be, 
whether  it  be  to  support,  to  span,  to  vault,  to  with- 
stand pressure,  or  what  not,  the  resulting  forms  of 
column,  architrave,  arch,  buttress,  and  so  on  must 
be  that  purpose  embodied.  Form,  in  a  word,  is 
function,  and  in  Western  art,  at  least,  no  other  law 
of  origin  is  admitted.  If  we  find  in  primitive  struc- 
tures forms  which  have  the  clumsy  and  uncouth 

II 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
aspect  which  are  the  marks  of  such  an  epoch,  such 
rudeness  of  form  is  but  the  measure  of  their  builders' 
rudeness  of  thought.  It  is  proof  that  in  the  mind  of 
the  architect  there  existed  no  clear  intellectual  per- 
ception of  the  nature  of  the  forces  which  were  his 
instruments.  The  direction  and  amount  of  his 
vault-thrusts,  the  bearing  capacity  of  his  columns, 
and  all  the  various  means  of  exertion  and  adjust- 
ment which  were  to  raise  and  knit  together  his 
structure  are  comprehended  only  vaguely  and  inde- 
finitely. It  is  this  vagueness  and  indefiniteness  of 
intellectual  comprehension  which,  communicating 
itself  to  the  forms  employed,  results  in  that  clumsiness 
which  we  associate  with  primitive  buildings.  By 
degrees,  with  practice  and  the  comparison  of  many 
experiments,  architects  attain  a  greater  exactitude  of 
knowledge.  The  range  and  limits  of  the  invisible 
forces  manipulated  are  more  clearly  revealed,  and  it 
is  in  proportion  as  they  are  understood  as  ideas  that 
they  approach  towards  purity  and  exactitude  of  form. 
Thus  it  is  that  architecture  is  recognised  in  the  West 
as  the  most  intellectual  of  the  arts  ;  for  whereas 
painting  and  sculpture  are  more  concerned  with 
representation  than  with  the  evolution  of  original 
forms,  architecture,  if  it  cannot  be  said  precisely  to 
invent  the  forms  it  employs,  yet  does  invest  with 
bodily  substance  forms  which  pre-existed  only  as 
ideas.  It  is  true  that,  in  the  sphere  of  decorative 
detail,  a  certain  licence  is  claimed  ;  but  there  is  no 
more  certain  sign  of  the  decadence  of  a  style  than 
when  the  natural  or  other  forms  imitated,  instead  of 
being  severely  subdued  to  structural  requirements, 
are  permitted  to  assert  their  own  character  too  freely, 

12 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 

In  the  purest  of  all  styles — namely,  the  Doric — the 
intellectual  idea  of  function  reigns  absolutely,  even 
the  capitals,  so  often  selected  for  special  treatment 
and  carved  with  the  likeness  of  foliage  and  animals, 
being  abstact  studies  of  appropriate  form  and  nothing 
else.  But  though  not  invariably  enforced  with  the 
Doric  thoroughness,  the  rule  holds  good  in  the  main 
through  all  Western  architecture.  The  structural 
features  of  Western  architecture  are  intellectual 
creations,  in  the  sense  that  their  form  is  the  intel- 
lectually realised  embodiment  of  the  function  they 
fulfil. 

Against  one  objection  indeed  it  may  be  well  to 
guard  ourselves.  The  aesthetic  element  in  architec- 
ture must  not  be  overlooked.  It  is,  or  ought  to  be,  the 
aim  of  structural  forms  not  only  to  be  but  to  appear 
to  the  eye  to  be  perfectly  adapted  to  their  function; 
To  appearance  something  is  conceded.  The  flutes 
of  a  Doric  column,  or  the  slight  and  invisible  swell 
which  modifies  its  outline,  do  not  perhaps  add  to 
the  actual  strength  of  the  column,  but  they  add  to 
its  apparent  strength.  Function  is  still  the  inspira- 
tion, but  now  from  an  intellectual  it  becomes  an 
cesthetic  motive.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  column 
be  perfectly  adapted  to  its  use  ;  it  must  also,  in  ex- 
pression and  bearing,  exhibit  its  own  knowledge  of, 
and  delight  in,  the  service  it  performs.  If  this  involves 
separate  treatment,  the  same  principles  continue  to 
inspire  that  treatment.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
objection  raised  is  really  a  confirmation  of  our  rule 
that  architectural  forms  are  to  be  determined  by 
what  they  have  to  do.  Conceived  intellectually,  the 
rule  is  carried    out  aesthetically,  and  having  first 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
defined  form  it  then  proceeds  to  endow   it   with 
beauty. 

Such  is  the  rule  in  the  West;  but  it  applies  to 
the  West  only.  The  non-intellectual  character  of 
Oriental  architecture  is  shown  in  nothing  more 
clearly  than  in  its  use  of  eccentric  and  fantastic 
forms  of  which  the  origin  is  non-functional  and  does 
not  lie  within  the  art  of  architecture.  The'Egyptian 
column  is  a  feature  of  this  kind.  The  most  character- 
istic example,  which  for  many  centuries  dominated 
the  architecture  of  the  Nile  and  is  its  natural  and 
sufficient  representative,  is  wrought  into  a  rude 
imitation  of  the  lotus  plant.  The  thick  stalk  swells 
bulb-like  out  of  a  calyx  or  sheath  of  pointed  leaves, 
and  terminates  in  a  ponderous  bud  by  way  of  capital.* 
The  shape  thus  given  to  the  column  is  approximately 
the  shape  of  a  gigantic  sausage — that  is  to  say,  it  is 
of  great  bulk  throughout,  except  at  the  base,  where 
it  suddenly  and  violently  contracts.  Now,  the  base 
of  a  column  is  precisely  the  point  where  its  strength 
should  be  greatest ;  for,  since  it  is  evident  that 
no  part  of  the  column  can  exceed  the  strength  of 
the  base,  any  weakness  there  cripples  inevitably 
the  whole  body.  Not  by  such  means  is  support 
afforded,  nor  could  the  idea  of  affording  support 
ever  have  called  such  a  shape  into  being.  Mr. 
Blomfield  does  indeed  profess  to  derive  even  from 
such  forms  as  these  certain  genuine  intellectual 
impressions.  "  Eternal  strength,"  he  says,  "gigantic 
strength,"  is  the  idea  they  convey  to  him.  Strength 
is  a  column's  chief  endowment,  and  a  form  which 
perfectly  expressed  strength  would,  according  to  all 
*  See  Frontispiece. 

H 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
Western  notions,  be  an  admirable  forrn  for  a  column. 
But  Mr.  Blomfield  will  scarcely  suggest  that  bulk 
and  strength  are  the  same  thing.  He  will  not  affirm 
that  bulk  which  is  obviously  redundant  and  can  be 
pared  away  to  almost  any  extent  is  strength.  But 
if  he  will  not  affirm  this,  he  cannot  affirm  that 
Egyptian  columns  express  strength,  for  it  is  palpably 
the  case  that  a  vast  amount  of  their  substance  is 
mere  adipose  tissue,  and  is  not  and  cannot  be  turned 
to  account  as  strength  at  all.  Indeed,  it  is  not 
enough  to  say  that  these  columns  do  not  express 
strength,  they  do  not  express  even  the  natural  hard- 
ness of  the  stone  they  are  built  of.  It  is  actually 
the  fact,  and  no  more  curious  instance  of  the  influence 
of  form  on  material  could  perhaps  be  cited,  that 
Egyptian  columns,  owing  to  their  bulging  shape, 
convey  to  the  spectator  an  impression  of  softness. 
Resting  on  their  diminished  bases,  their  swollen 
masses  have  the  distended  and,  so  to  speak,  dropsical 
aspect  of  matter  divorced  from  energy.  Such  forms 
as  these  strike  the  European  mind  as  abortions 
because  they  were  not  evolved  by  and  do  not 
express  the  function  they  perform.  The  giant 
shapes  of  the  columns  of  Luxor  and  Karnak  convey 
no  idea  of  a  definite  power  exercised  or  a  definite 
duty  fulfilled.  Their  bloated  proportions,  in  the 
dim  obscurity  of  the  place,  suggest  nothing  more 
structural  than  a  crop  of  extravagant  fungi,  in  growth 
commensurate  to  the  damp  depths  of  Nile  soil  and 
the  forcing  capacity  of  an  Egyptian  sun,  but  not 
calculated  in  obedience  to  any  architectural  purpose. 
According,  then,  to  Western  ideas,  these  Egyptian 
columns  are  not  columns  at  all — that  is  to  say,  they 

15 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
have  not  the  form  of  columns.  To  find  the  form  of 
the  columns  in  these  masses  of  matter  we  should 
have  to  dig  for  it.  Somewhere  concealed  within  the 
imitation  of  the  lotus  lie  the  proportions  which 
correspond  with  the  column's  function  of  support, 
and  which  constitute  its  intellectual  form,  but  they 
are  not  apparent. 

And  now  will  the   reader  ask  himself  by  what 
means  such  features  as  I  have  described  can   co- 
operate in  any  general  scheme  based  on  the  inter- 
relation of  its  various  parts?     Interrelation  of  parts 
is  expressed  in  the  law  of  proportion,  and  trabeated 
architecture  is  chiefly  effective  in  this,  that  in  the 
sharp  distinction  drawn  between  burden  and  support, 
or  horizontal  and  upright,  it  offers  the  eye  an  oppor- 
tunity of  gauging,  with  great  exactness,  the  propor- 
tion of  the  one  to  the  other.     But  how  can  this  be 
done  with  a  supporting  member  which  does  not 
express  its  own  strength— nay,  which  disguises  and 
conceals  its  strength  ?    What  is  the  burden   that 
shall  exactly  fit  a  force  which  evades  definition  ? 
Is  it  not  evident  that  unless  the  upright  first  clearly 
expresses  its  own  capacity  the  horizontal   cannot 
possibly  be  brought  into  a  proportionate  relation- 
ship with  it  ?     How  can  you  proportion  weight  to 
support  if  you   do   not   know   what    the   support 
amounts  to  ?     How  are  you  to  aim  at  a  mark  that 
has  no  existence  ?     The  truth  is  that  proportion  in 
connection  with  Egyptian  columns  and  entablatures 
is  a  word  without  a  meaning.     You  may  increase  or 
decrease  the  entablature's  size  indefinitely,  but  you 
never   will   touch    the    point    where    it    seems    to 
correspond  with  the  columns,  for  this  point  it  is  for 
i6 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
the  columns  themselves  to  determine,  and  they  have 
not  done  so.  The  obvious  conclusion  is  that  the 
law  of  proportion — and  the  same  holds  good  of 
unity,  symmetry,  and  the  like,  for  they  are  all 
interdependent — will  not  work  at  all  save  with  those 
forms  which  obey  the  primary  rule  of  expressing 
function.  Proportion,  unity,  symmetry  are  archi- 
tectural principles,  and  can  and  will  operate  only 
with  architectural  forms ;  but  only  those  forms  are 
architectural  which  express  function.  In  short,  to 
press  the  case  against  Egyptian  architecture  to  its 
logical  conclusion,  we  shall  have  to  argue,  not  that 
that  architecture  is  indifferent  or  bad  architecture, 
but  that  it  is  not  architecture  at  all ;  and,  indeed,  a 
suspicion  of  this  seems  once  or  twice  to  have 
visited  Mr.  Blomfield  himself ;  at  least  we  find  him, 
in  spite  of  Greek  parallels  and  the  grand  manner, 
declaring  that,  after  all,  "  in  criticising  this  archi- 
tecture it  is  useless  to  apply  the  canons  of  northern 
art,"  a  phrase  which,  if  it  does  not  mean  that 
architecture  in  itself  has  no  fixed  laws,  can  only 
mean,  I  suppose,  that  Egyptian  buildings  are  not 
architecture. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  that  to  exalt  a  style  of  this 
stamp  to  the  intellectual  level  of  the  Greek  standard 
of  art  is  entirely  to  misapprehend  its  true  character. 
In  general  plan,  as  in  the  shape  of  its  individual 
features,  the  intellectual  note  is  equally  lacking. 
There  is  no  such  thing  in  Egyptian  architecture  as 
proportion,  as  unity,  as  the  subordination  of  the 
parts  to  the  whole,  any  more  than  there  is  any  such 
thing  in  it  as  right  relation  between  its  component 
members  and  the  function  they  perform.     Egyptian 

B  17 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
structural  features  are  no  more  combined  intel- 
lectually than  they  are  conceived  intellectually. 
Such  a  style  has  nothing  whatever  to  teach  us  in 
the  way  of  art,  and  we  shall  certainly  only  obscure 
the  meaning  of  the  laws  of  art  by  endeavouring  to 
trace  their  presence  in  works  of  such  a  totally 
different  origin. 

But  if  we  shift  our  point  of  view — if,  instead  of 
asking  what  Egyptian  architecture  has  to  teach 
us  about  the  fixed  laws  of  art,  we  inquire  what  it 
has  to  teach  us  about  the  life  of  the  Nile  valley — it  is 
possible  we  may  arrive  at  more  satisfactory  results. 
To  these  questions  its  very  defects  and  limitations 
are  part  of  its  answer,  indicating  as  they  do 
corresponding  defects  or  limitations  in  the  life  out 
of  which  they  proceeded.  At  the  same  time,  in 
instituting  a  comparison  between  art  and  life  there 
is  no  reason  to  confine  our  survey  of  art  strictly  to 
architecture.  The  characteristics  we  have  been 
noticing  of  Egyptian  architecture  hold  good  of 
Egyptian  art  generally.  The  chief  of  those  charac- 
teristics, as  regards  the  architecture,  and  that  which 
contrasts  it  with  all  Western  style,  was,  we  saw,  its 
non-intellectual  nature  as  indicated  by  the  fact  that 
for  thousands  of  years  it  remains  content  with 
structural  forms  which  are  not  realised  as  structural 
features  at  all.  Now,  if  we  turn  to  the  Egyptian 
bas-reliefs  of  which  the  temple  walls  are  such 
opulent  museums,  we  shall  draw  from  sculpture  the 
same  evidence  that  we  lately  obtained  from  archi- 
tecture. The  reader  knows  the  general  character  of 
this  temple  sculpture  too  well  for  me  to  need  to 
describe  it.  Its  main  feature  is  an  iron  formalism 
i8 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
which  usurps  the  place  of  intelh'gent  observation. 
The  figures  and  groups  of  warrior  kings  and  animal- 
headed  gods  are  composed  in  obedience  to  certain 
fixed  and  invariable  rules,  which  rules  are  them- 
selves a  defiance  of  the  laws  of  nature.     No  figure 
is  realised  in  its  entirety,  but  each  limb  and  member 
of  it  is  separately  finished  in  that  aspect  which  most 
easily  suggests  itself  to  the  memory,  and  the  frag- 
ments are  then  pieced  together  to  form  the  entire 
man.    Thus  a  face  is  carved  in  profile,  but  the  eye  is 
the  full  eye  ;  the  shoulders  are  turned  square  to  the 
front,  while  the  legs  and  feet  revert  to  the  exact  profile 
once  more.     It  is  inevitable  that  such  an  arbitrary 
and  unnatural   arrangement   should  preclude  any 
attempt  at  reahsm  in  detail,  since  the  whole  must  Hve 
if  the  parts  are  to  live.   Hands,  feet,  eyes,  ears,  noses, 
hair,  arms  and  legs  are  all  carved  in  Egyptian  art, 
not  imitatively,   not  as  by  one  who   realises  the 
meaning  and  nature  of  that  which  he  depicts,  but  in 
accordance  with  certain  childish  precedents  early 
established,  and  never,  at  least  to  any  appreciable 
extent,  altered.     The  work  as  it  stands  is   often 
delicate  and  always  precise,  the  outlines  are  firmly 
and  exactly  drawn,  the  finish  of  the  surface  exhibits 
considerable  manual  dexterity,  but  there  is  in  these 
figures  and  faces  no  mind  or  thought  of  any  kind. 
They  are  mere  mechanical  reiterations  of  certain 
cut-and-dried   precepts    which    demand    for    their 
production  skill  of  hand,  but  no  mental  co-operation 
of  any  sort  or  kind. 

And  yet,  just  as  Mr.  Blomfield  has  invested  the 
Nile  temples  with  aesthetic  meaning,  or  as  Mr. 
Piazzi  Smith  has  divined  certain  profound  scientific 

19 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

purposes  in  the  pyramids,  so  there  have  been  others 
who  have  extracted  an  infinite  significance  from  the 
blank  masks  of  Egyptian  sculpture.  Mr.  Hichens, 
and  still  more  M.  Loti,  have  distilled  from  the  Sphinx 
by  moonlight  emotions  to  which  I  cannot  here 
attempt  to  do  justice.  But  how  much  of  their 
emotion  is  found  and  how  much  brought  ?  Senti- 
mental and  imaginative  people  will  always  incline 
probably  to  see  in  the  vacancy  of  the  Sphinx's 
expression  a  reflex  of  the  vide  et  neant  which  lies 
on  the  other  side  of  knowledge.  But  the  difference 
between  knowing  that  there  is  nothing  to  know  and 
knowing  nothing  may  easily  be  lost  sight  of.  There 
is  a  vide  et  neant  on  this  side  of  knowledge  as  well 
as  on  the  other.  Has  the  Sphinx  finished  thinking,  or 
has  it,  perhaps,  not  begun  to  think  ?  If  the  reader 
will  compare  the  countenance  of  the  Sphinx  with  the 
precisely  similar  and  equally  vacant  countenances 
carved  on  the  innumerable  sarcophagi  which  have 
found  their  way  into  European  museums  he  will  easily 
answer  the  question.  The  emptiness  of  the  Sphinx's 
face  is  a  prevailing  trait  in  all  Egyptian  sculpture. 
All  Egyptian  faces  stare  before  them  with  the  same 
blank  regard  which  can  be  made  to  mean  anything 
precisely  because  it  means  nothing.  It  is  natural 
that  we,  with  the  idea  in  our  heads  that  sculpture 
must  interpret  thought  and  feeling,  should  strain 
our  eyes  to  discover  in  these  passionless  lineaments 
some  hidden  mystery.  But  in  truth  we  waste  our 
ingenuity ;  for  not  only  are  these  faces  too  con- 
sistently and  uniformly  blank,  and  blank  in  a  too 
stereotyped  and  monotonous  fashion,  to  be  charge- 
able with  any  depths  or  subtleties  of  thought,  but 
20 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
also  the  more  we  examine  Egyptian  art  the  more 
clearly  we  perceive  that  to  credit  it  with  the  wish  to 
interpret  profound  ideas  and  emotions  is  to  credit 
it  with  views  which  in  fact  it  never  possessed.  Art 
in  Egypt  is  not  used  for  any  such  purpose.  The 
Sphinx  faces  are  not  emptier  of  expression  than  the 
groups  of  combatants  and  chariots  on  the  temple 
walls  are  destitute  of  inherent  purpose  and  passion. 
Kings,  gods,  prisoners,  the  smiting  champion  and 
the  transfixed  victim  are  all  equally  expressionless. 
Clearly  the  idea  that  art  can  be  charged  with,  and 
visibly  body  forth,  the  emotions  and  ideas  of  the 
human  mind  was  never  grasped  by  Egyptian 
sculptors ;  and  when  battle-scenes  are  destitute  of 
the  most  obvious  expression  of  energy  and  emotion, 
why  should  we  go  out  of  our  way  to  suppose  that  a 
profound  significance  is  to  be  attributed  to  equally 
mechanical  reiterations  of  the  human  countenance  ? 
The  truth  is,  Egyptian  sculpture  is  a  sculpture 
barren  of  intellectual  insight  and  intellectual  interest. 
A  few  years  ago  Professor  Loewy  published  a  very 
interesting  work  on  archaic  art,  in  which  he  dwelt 
on  the  influence  of  memory  upon  drawing. 

'<  Not  all  images  of  objects  [he  points  out],  even 
of  those  frequently  seen,  are  equally  retained  by  the 
memory,  which  prefers  rather  to  make  a  selection. 
We  have  seen  numberless  times  a  leaf,  a  wheel,  an 
ear,  an  eye,  an  outstretched  hand,  and  so  on,  from 
their  every  point  of  view,  but  nevertheless  so  often 
as  we  thoughtlessly  picture  to  ourselves  a  leaf,  a 
wheel,  &c.,  there  appears  in  our  mind  only  one 
image  of  each," 

21 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
After  explaining  that  the  unpractised  memory  is 
limited    and    embraces  only  the    simplest  forms, 
Professor  Loewy  adds  that  "most  objects,  being 
more  or  less  complex,  leave  behind  them  only  an 
indistinct  image  of  their  general  appearance.'     We 
then  come  to  a  particularly  interesting  observation  : 
"To  make  this  image  clearer,   the  imagination," 
Professor  Loewy  supposes,  "  proceeds  as  follows  : 
It  brings  the   component   parts  one  by  one  into 
consciousness,   and   with    these   familiar   elements 
builds  up  the   image  which  it  cannot  picture  to 
itself  as  a  whole,"  the  result  being  that  **  in  the 
mental  process  the  organic  whole  of  the  natural 
object  is  resolved  in  a  succession  of  images  of  its 
parts,  each  part  independent  of  the  other."    That 
we  have  here  a  plausible  analysis  of  the  limitations 
of  Egyptian  art  any  one  who  recalls  its  unvarying 
repetition  of  limbs  and  features,  each   dealt  with 
separately  in  its  easiest  and  most  memorable  aspect, 
and  afterwards  fitted  forcibly  together  to  form  a 
whole,  will  acknowledge.     Each  feature  seized  by 
Egyptian  art,  the  profile  face  and  feet,  the  full 
fronting  shoulders,  is  the  feature  at  its  simplest, 
the  feature  as  a  child  would  naturally  try  to  repre- 
sent it.    The  further  stage  of  advance,  which  con- 
sists in  combining  the  parts  into  a  whole  animated 
by  a  common  purpose  and   in  due  relation  and 
harmony  with   each   other,   is  never  attained    to. 
Egyptian  art,  in  short,  remains  placidly  and  per- 
manently fixed  in  the  archaic  stage  of  development. 
No  impulse  of  curiosity  or  more  intimate  insight 
nto  the  nature  of  things  ever  carries  it  beyond  the 
boundary.     Its  simple   memory-pictures   become, 
22 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
by  long  usage,  formed  with  exquisite  deftness,  but 
they  grow  only  the  more   strictly  and  hopelessly 
conventionalised  with  the  lapse  of  time. 

There  have  been  two  great  creative  movements 
in  the  history  of  Western  art,  the  Greek  and  the 
Renaissance  movements  ;  the  movement  that  centred 
in  Athens  and  the  movement  that  centred  in 
Florence.  And  in  both  these  cases  the  mental 
circumstances  and  characteristics  of  the  hour,  and 
the  nature  and  general  character  of  the  art  which 
resulted,  are  strictly  similar.  On  the  one  hand, 
Athens  and  Florence  live  in  history  as  the  com- 
munities which  originated  or  revived  the  idea  of 
what  we  may  call  an  intellectual  civilisation,  that 
is  to  say,  a  civilisation  directed  and  controlled  by 
rational  motives.  Across  a  gap  of  twenty  centuries 
the  two  states  are  drawn  together  by  their  mutual 
confidence  in  the  intellectual  faculty  and  their 
mutual  unbounded  delight  in  its  free  use  and 
exercise.  Against  the  Egyptian  background  of 
routine  the  Greek  epoch  stands  out  with  the  sparkle 
and  animation  of  sudden  life.  We  know  not  what 
those  grey  figures  are  that  move  in  the  dimness  of 
the  Egyptian  twilight,  but  these  warm  and  supple 
Greek  figures  we  know.  Their  attitudes  and  fea- 
tures, their  thoughts  and  emotions,  are  ours.  We 
can  identify  ourselves  with  them  still.  We  can  be 
thrilled  by  their  art  and  melted  by  their  poetry  ;  for 
in  the  main  their  point  of  view  is  ours.  The  intel- 
lectual estimate  of  life  which  they  proposed  and 
inaugurated  is  that  which  we  still  hold  by.  In  every 
department  of  life  and  thought,  in  literature,  in 
art,  in  science  and  knowledge  of  the  universe,  in 

23 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
government    and    philosophy,  the    effects   of    the 
new   motive,   of  the   determination    to    place   life 
under  control  of  the  rational  faculty,  are  felt  and 
seen. 

And  so,  too,  with  what  we  rightly  call  the  age  of 
''intellectual awakening" — the  ageof  the  Renaissance. 
It  is  a  modern  age.  Against  the  dark  background 
of  mediaeval  semi-barbarism  it  lives  and  moves  with 
what  seems  to  us  a  suddenly  natural  life.  We  under- 
stand its  motives  and  its  speech,  and  all  its  ways  are 
familiar  to  us.  It,  too,  has  accepted  the  rational 
estimate.  Not  to  live  a  life  of  habit,  not  to  accept 
explanations  passively  and  blindly  submit  itself  to 
the  laws  and  forces  of  nature,  but  to  probe  and 
question,  to  examine  into  reasons  and  explanations, 
and  analyse  the  composition  and  the  laws  of  nature, 
in  a  word,  to  assert  in  all  directions  the  authority 
of  thought,  is  the  ideal  once  more  of  human 
existence. 

These  two  epochs,  then,  stand  out  in  history  as 
pre-eminently  epochs  of  intellectual  vitality.  But 
they  were  also  pre-eminently  epochs  of  artistic 
vitality,  and  their  artistic  vitality  was  of  one  and  the 
same  kind.  What  primarily  and  above  all  distin- 
guishes Attic  and  Florentine  art  is  their  resolve, 
similar  in  both  cases,  to  arrive  at  natural  or  realistic 
representation,  and  their  slow  struggle  towards, 
and  final  achievement  of  that  end.  Greek  intellec- 
tualism  acting  on  art  turns  inanimate  convention 
into  vital  forms  :  it  discovers  ease  and  grace  of 
feature  and  pose  and  how  tp  make  the  human 
figure  expressive  of  the  thoughts  and  emotions 
which  inspire  human  nature.      Renaissance  intel- 

24 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
lectualism  acting  on  art  achieves  precisely  the 
same  results :  it  turns  the  stiff  conventionalism  of 
the  old  Byzantine  forms  into  animated  and  living 
figures,  and  in  all  other  branches  of  art  it  sets  itself 
to  the  discovery  of  the  scientific  methods  and 
laws  which  result  in  realistic  representation.  The 
consequence  is  that  these  two  epochs,  so  remark- 
able for  sudden  intellectual  initiative,  are  just  as 
remarkable,  in  the  sphere  of  art,  for  a  suddenly 
aroused  and  forcibly  expressed  sense  of  naturalism. 
So  strikingly  obvious,  indeed,  is  the  combination — 
working  out  as  it  does  by  equal  steps,  intellectual 
development  and  activity  on  the  one  side  keeping 
pace  with  artistic  freedom  and  realism  on  the  other 
— that  no  one  can  think  for  a  moment  of  Greek 
art  as  the  expression  of  Greek  life,  and  Renais- 
sance art  as  the  expression  of  Renaissance  life 
without  coming  to  regard  naturalism  in  art — or 
the  capacity  to  render  things  realistically  and  as 
we  see  them — as  the  counterpart  of  intellectualism 
in  life. 

The  identification  of  the  two,  I  may  add,  has  a 
natural  appropriateness  and  inevitability.  For 
when  we  think  of  what  intellectual  vitality  means, 
when  we  think  of  intellect's  delight  in  examining 
and  analysing  and  giving  an  exact  and  realistically 
true  account  of  all  it  handles  and  deals  with,  it  is 
inevitable  that  we  should  see  in  a  correctly  drawn, 
modelled,  proportioned  and  foreshortened  group 
or  landscape  a  work  conceived  with  the  aid  of 
intellectual  perception. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  we  see  groups  and 
landscapes  misdrawn  and  presented  to  us  in  such 

25 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
attitudes  and  perspectives  as  cause  them  to  look 
altogether  misshapen  and  unreal,  it  is  difficult  for 
us  to  avoid  the  conviction  that  we  are  dealing  with 
a  race  which  was  intellectually  defective.  For,  we 
think,  if  intellect  which  so  delights  in  reality  and 
exactitude  of  definition  were  active  among  this 
people,  it  would  have  taught  them  how  to  model, 
draw,  and  foreshorten  so  as  to  produce  the  appear- 
ance of  reahty. 

In  our  own  minds,  therefore,  we  feel,  what  Athens 
and  Florence  assure  us  of,  that  intellectual  vitality 
and  the  capacity  for  real  representation  in  art  are 
inseparably  linked  together ;  the  latter  being,  in 
fact,  the  visible  sign  or  expression  of  the  presence 
of  the  former.  But  if  this  is  a  true  conclusion, 
what  will  the  application  of  it  to  Egyptian  art  and 
Egyptian  life  mean  ?  Egyptian  art  is  the  most  v 
stereotyped,  the  most  unreal  and  untrue  to  nature 
that  we  know  of,  and  the  conclusion  would  natu- 
rally follow  that  Egyptian  life  was  intellectually 
defective.  But  this  Mr.  Blomfield  will  not  allow 
for  a  moment.  "The  Egyptians,"  he  assures  us, 
"were  a  people  of  great  intelligence  and  highly 
developed  civilisation."  Mr.  Blomfield  advances 
nothing  in  support  of  this  assertion,  yet  it  is  a 
vitally  important  one.  The  appeal  for  each  of  us 
is  to  the  people,  to  what  we  know  of  their  literature 
and  science  and  the  fragments  of  their  thoughts 
that  have  come  down  to  us.  It  is  only  by  this 
appeal  that  our  arguments  can  be  satisfactorily 
verified.  Asserting  the  intellectual  character  of  the 
art,  Mr.  Blomfield  assumes  as  a  matter  of  course 
the  intellectual  character  of  the  civilisation  it  sprang 
26 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
from.     Asserting  the  non-intellectual   character  of 
the   art,    I   on   my  side  must  prove,  if  I  can,  the 
non-intellectual  character  of  the  civilisation. 

Nor  is  this  quite  so  difficult  a  task  as  it  may 
appear,  for  if,  overcoming  the  awe  we  feel  for 
things  of  great  antiquity,  we  look  frankly  at  any 
aspect  of  Egyptian  life,  it  is  impossible  not  to  be 
struck  by  the  archaic  quality  in  it,  a  quality  which 
we  soon  learn  to  connect  with  a  tendency  towards 
irrational  or  non-intellectual  views.  Religion  is,  of 
course,  always  the  most  significant  test  in  matters 
like  these.  1  will  not  enter  into  the  complicated 
relationships  of  the  innumerable  Egyptian  gods 
and  godlets.  They  are  mostly  of  local  origin  and 
influence,  but  are  exposed  to  competition  with  each 
other  as  the  country  achieves  a  more  or  less  con- 
scious unity.  Some  die  out,  some  extend  their 
sway,  many  come  to  be  thought  of  as  additional  or 
alternative  names  for  a  more  fashionable  god  whose 
fame  happens  to  be  spreading,  many  again  are 
described  as  an  attribute  or  quality  of  such  a  god. 
They  combine,  unite,  separate,  dissolve  into  each 
other,  disappear  and  reappear  with  a  motion  which 
it  is  impossible  to  follow,  and  to  which  no  definite 
and  progressive  purpose  can  be  assigned.  Pro- 
fessor Petrie  divides  the  Egyptian  gods  into  several 
categories,  animal,  cosmic,  human,  and  abstract, 
but  the  distinctions  are  hard  to  maintain,  and  the 
most  degraded  ideas  and  comparatively  elevated 
ones  are  constantly  intermixed.  Of  all  traits, 
however,  the  persistence  of  animal  worship  is  the 
most  noticeable  in  the  religion  of  Egypt,  the 
motives,  if  correctly  gauged  by  Professor   Petrie, 

27 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
being  the  same  as  usually  appeal  to  man  in  the 
animal  stage  of  enlightenment. 

"The  baboon  was  regarded  as  the  emblem  of 
Tahuti,  the  god  of  wisdom  ;  the  serious  expression 
and  human  ways  of  the  large  baboon  are  an 
obvious  cause  for  their  being  regarded  as  the  wisest 
of  animals.  Tahuti  is  represented  as  a  baboon 
from  the  first  dynasty  down  to  late  times,  and  four 
baboons  were  sacred  in  his  temple  at  Hermopolis, 
These  four  baboons  were  often  portrayed  as  adoring 
the  sun  ;  this  idea  is  due  to  their  habit  of  chattering 
at  sunrise." 

Moreover,  primitive  animal  worship  not  only 
maintained  itself  but  tended  to  drag  down  all 
religious  conceptions  to  its  own  level.  In  the  Apis 
bull  of  Memphis  Ptah  was  said  to  be  incarnate,  in 
the  bull  of  Heliopolis  Ra  was  incarnate,  while  Baku, 
the  bull  of  Hermonthis,  was  the  incarnation  of 
Mentu.  The  cow  was  identified  with  Hathor,  the 
ram  with  Osiris,  with  Amon,  with  Khnumu,  the 
creator  ;  the  hippopotamus  was  the  goddess  Ta-urt, 
the  jackal  was  Anubis,  the  god  of  departing  souls. 
The  hawk  was  identified  with  Horus  and  Ra,  the 
sun-god  ;  the  vulture  impersonated  Mut,  the  god- 
dess of  maternity  at  Thebes ;  the  crocodile  was 
especially  sacred  throughout  the  Fayum,  where  it 
was  identified  with  Osiris.  It  is  to  be  observed  that 
in  each  case,  though  a  god  was  supposed  to  be 
incarnated  in  the  animal,  it  was  the  animal,  not  the 
god,  that  was  recognised  by  the  nation ;  in  other 
words,  it  was  an  animal- worship  of  the  idea  of  deity 
which  alone  was  generally  appreciated.  PVom  the 
28 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 

dawn  of  Egyptian  history  it  would  appear  that 
animal-worship  in  the  Nile  Valley  received  state 
sanction.  As  far  back  as  the  second  Thinite 
Dynasty  the  worship  of  the  bull  Apis  at  Memphis, 
Mnevis  of  Heliopolis,  and  the  ram  of  Mendes  was 
legalised : 

*'and  though  [as  Professor  Sayce  points  out]  the 
official  explanation  was  that  these  animals  were  but 
incarnations  of  Ptah  and  Ra,  to  whom  the  worship 
was  really  addressed,  it  was  an  explanation  about 
which  the  people  neither  knew  nor  cared.  The 
divine  honours  they  paid  to  the  bull  and  ram  were 
paid  to  the  animals  themselves,  and  not  to  the  gods 
of  the  priestly  cult." 

This  primitive  form  of  belief,  which  appears  to 
have  been  indigenous  to  the  country,  remained 
always  the  essential  attribute  of  its  religion.  St. 
Clement  of  Alexandria  describes  the  sumptuous 
adornment  of  the  Egyptian  temples  of  his  day,  the 
approach  to  the  shrine,  the  drawing  aside  of  the 
gold-embroidered  curtain  and  the  involuntary  laugh 
of  derision  which  ensued  :  "for  no  god  is  found 
therein,  but  a  cat,  or  a  crocodile,  or  a  serpent  sprung 
from  the  soil,  or  some  such  brute  animal,  and  the 
Egyptian  deity  is  revealed  as  a  beast  that  rolls  itself 
on  a  purple  coverlet."  Not  man's  spiritual  instinct 
only,  but  his  rational  nature,  as  developed  under 
classical  training,  revolted  at  such  a  spectacle. 
Roman  and  Greek  expressed  equal  disgust  for  the 
beast-worship  which  flourished  with  such  strange 
persistence  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  Minds  which 
had    absorbed    the    idea   of    a   life   directed    and 

29 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
controlled  by  the  dictates  of  reason,  and  which 
regarded  the  gods  as  the  incarnation  of  all  things 
humanly  desirable  and  beautiful,  could  not  but 
consider  the  menagerie  of  the  Egyptian  Pantheon 
with  as  much  scorn  as  astonishment.  I  am  speaking, 
of  course,  of  the  popular  and  generally  accepted 
views  on  religion  in  Egypt  rather  than  of  those 
speculations  of  the  priestly  profession  which, 
though  they  attained  to  nothing  extraordinary  in 
the  way  of  thought,  though  they  were  essentially 
incoherent  and  often  mutually  contradictory,  yet 
contained  hints  of  a  more  adequate  and  spiritual 
conception  of  divine  ideas.  Applying  their  own 
reasoning  processes  to  these  scattered  hints  and 
guesses,  the  Greeks  were  able  to  employ  them  as 
material  in  a  coherent  philosophical  system.  In  so 
doing  they  were  but  applying  to  Egyptian  philo- 
sophy the  treatment  they  had  applied  to  Egyptian 
art.  The  intellectual  insight  which  had  evolved  the 
Doric  column  out  of  the  Egyptian  lotus,  and  living 
figures  out  of  Egyptian  bas-reliefs,  might  wring  some- 
thing intelligible  out  of  the  inconsequent  guesses  of 
Egyptian  theology.  But  though  something  might 
be  made  of  these  suggestions  by  bringing  the 
missing  faculty  to  bear  upon  them,  nothing  was 
ever  made  out  of  them  in  Egypt  itself.  Not  only 
was  the  Egyptian  religion  destitute  of  any  philo- 
sophical system,  but  the  co-existence  of  the  incon- 
sistencies it  contained  points  to  an  absence  of 
ordinary  intellectual  capacity.  It  is  impossible  that 
beliefs  so  haphazard  and  self-contradictory  should 
have  subsisted  among  a  people  of  what  we  should 
call  average  reasoning  powers.     It  is  the  case,  as 

30 


THE  TEA/IPLES  OF  EGYPT 
Professor  Sayce  observes,  that  even  in  highly 
organised  religions  we  find  a  combination  of  hetero- 
geneous elements.  But,  in  proportion  as  the  races 
concerned  are  possessed  of  mental  lucidity  and 
insight,  these  heterogeneous  elements  are  fused 
and  harmonised  into  a  consistent  whole.  If  the 
Egyptian  made  no  such  endeavour,  it  was  because 
he  lacked  the  faculty  to  which  disorder  is  an 
offence.  Of  the  *'  loosely  connected  agglomeration 
of  beliefs  and  practices"  which  made  up  the 
Egyptian  religion,  Professor  Sayce  points  out  that 

"  no  attempt  was  ever  made  to  form  them  into  a 
coherent  and  homogeneous  whole,  or  to  find  a 
philosophic  basis  upon  which  they  might  all  rest. 
Such  an  idea,  indeed,  never  occurred  to  the 
Egyptian.  He  was  quite  content  to  take  his 
religion  as  it  had  been  handed  down  to  him,  or  as 
it  was  prescribed  by  the  State  ;  he  had  none  of  that 
inner  retrospection  which  distinguishes  the  Hindu, 
none  of  that  desire  to  know  the  causes  of  things 
which  characterised  the  Greek.  The  contradictions 
which  w^e  find  in  the  articles  of  his  creed  never 
troubled  him  ;  he  never  perceived  them,  or  if  he  did 
they  were  ignored," 

And  this,  be  it  noted,  is  the  case  with  Egyptian 
religion  even  among  the  so-called  learned  classes. 
Even  among  these,  religion  was  totally  lacking  in  the 
principle  of  unity,  symmetry  and  harmony ;  prin- 
ciples recognisably  intellectual,  since  they  are  the 
outcome  of  consistent  and  coherent  thought.  It  is 
impossible  to  turn  over  the  jumble  of  odds  and  ends 
that  make  up  Egyptian  theology  without  perceiving 

31 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
that  what  is  lacking  to  them  is  the  intellect's  capacity 
for  distinguishing,  selecting,  fitting  like  to  like  and 
evolving  an  order  and  a  harmony  out  of  the  existing 
chaos.  But  the  main  body  of  Egyptian  religion 
never  even  reached  to  the  level  where  the  applica- 
tion of  intellectual  thought  was  possible.  The  idea 
usually  accepted  is  that  the  beast-worship  of  the 
Nile  Valley  was  the  product  of  the  aboriginal  popu- 
lation, while  the  more  advanced  conceptions  of 
anthropomorphic  or  abstract  deities  wxre  importa- 
tions, most  probably  from  Assyria  or  Arabia.  Be 
this  as  it  may,  the  fact  remains  that  a  form  of  belief 
peculiar  to  the  primitive  stage  of  human  development 
remained  dominant  in  Egyptian  religion  down  to 
the  period  of^its  total  extinction.  Persisting  with 
the  terrible  tenacity  so  characteristic  of  all  Nilotic 
ideas  and  institutions,  it  would  no  more  let  go  of 
life  than  the  similar  primitive  limitations  would  let 
go  of  art.  We  see  in  both  a  perpetuation  of  the 
archaic  phase,  a  perpetuation  which  depends  on 
one  and  the  same  startling  deficiency  in  Egyptian 
character,  its  incapacity  for  intellectual  development. 
There  are  religions  of  three  kinds,  animal,  rational, 
and  spiritual,  and  it  has  belonged  to  man's  progress 
to  embrace  each  in  turn.  It  is  not  only,  nor  so  much 
even,  the  spiritual  consciousness  in  us  which  rejects 
the  idea  of  w^orshipping  crocodiles  and  jackals  as  the 
intellectual  consciousness.  The  especial  note  of 
degradation  of  such  an  act,  of  less  than  manhood, 
is  due  to  its  lack  of  reason.  Why  have  we  no  such 
feeling  of  repulsion  when  we  study  classical  myths 
and  beliefs  ?  Because,  though  these  may  appear 
spiritually  inadequate,   they    teach    or   sanction  a 

32 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
human  ideal  approved  by  intellect,  and  they  are  not 
therefore  humanly  degrading.  From  the  human 
point  of  view  at  least,  Apollo  is  no  mean  figure ; 
but  from  the  human  or  divine  point  of  view  jackal- 
headed  Anubis  falls  short  of  the  requisite  standard 
by  all  the  difference  which  separates  beast  and  man, 
and  that  difference  consists  in  the  beast's  lack  of 
intellect. 

If  we  had  space  to  glance  at  the  learning,  litera-  \ 
ture,  education,  and  government  of  ancient  Egypt 
we  should  find  in  each  the  same  attribute  wanting 
that  was  wanting  to  religion.  Egyptian  learning 
has  nothing  whatever  in  common,  as  Herr  Erman 
long  ago  pointed  out,  with  "  the  pure  pleasure  which 
we  of  the  modern  world  feel  at  the  recognition  of 
truth."  Its  object  is  not  to  divine  the  meaning  of 
phenomena,  not  to  follow  thought  disinterestedly 
and  assimilate  ideas  for  their  own  sake,  but  simply 
to  obtain  for  its  professors  access  to  official  employ- 
ment. Scholarship  in  Egypt  was  the  passport  from 
a  life  of  toil  and  drudgery  to  the  official  life  of  the 
overseer  and  exciseman.  As  scholarship,  however, 
it  is  the  most  sterile  example  of  its  kind  I  have  ever 
met  with.  It  consists  largely  of  wearisome  "  elucida- 
tions" of  ancient  prayers  and  hymns,  and  is  marked 
by  nothing  but  a  perfectly  barren  talent  for  inventing 
hidden  meanings  where  none  exist,  and  adding  to 
the  difficulties  of  the  text  by  supplying  a  number  of 
explanations  which  leave  the  subject  ten  times  more 
perplexed  than  they  found  it.  The  Egyptian  unin- 
telligibility  is  due,  not  to  depth  of  thought,  but  to 
verbal  quibbles  and  superficial  irrelevancies.  Evi- 
dently the  scribes,  desirous  of  impressing  the  ingorant 

c  33 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
multitude  by  the  exhibition  of  superior  wisdom,  had 
made  the  discovery  that  the  simplest  way  of  doing 
so  lay  in  the  cultivation  of  verbal  obscurities.  It  is 
an  art  which  can  only  deceive  the  unthinking,  and 
any  one  who  has  a  feeling  for  genuine  mental 
initiative  will  be  conscious  of  the  lack  of  it  in  these 
displays  of  pompous  and  aimless  ingenuity. 

"  If,"  observes  Herr  Erman,  as  he  concludes  his 
survey  of  the  Egyptian  commentators,  "the  Egyptian 
contributions  to  learning  were  of  such  little  value  on 
a  subject  which  appeared  to  them  of  such  great 
importance,  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  on  subjects 
of  wider  scope  they  have  not  rendered  much  service 
to  science."  History,  the  branch  of  literature  which 
traces  the  sequence  of  events  and  depicts  men  as 
they  were  and  things  as  they  happened,  is  in  a  par- 
ticular degree  the  intellectual  department  of  litera- 
ture. In  Egypt  it  is  practically  non-existent.  Some 
fantastical  and  extravagant  rhapsodies  on  the  vic- 
tories of  kings  and  other  similar  events  have  come 
down  to  us,  but  nothing  deserving  the  name  of 
history.  Nor  is  this,  we  may  feel  pretty  confident, 
due  to  destructive  causes.  The  historical  language, 
of  which  the  style  is  formed  by  contact  with  reality, 
is  unknown  in  Egyptian  literature.  Similarly  it  will 
be  found  that,  while  all  the  merit  of  Egyptian  poetry 
is  monopolised  by  the  slight  and,  as  they  must  have 
seemed  in  the  eyes  of  the  Egyptians  themselves, 
fugitive  forms  of  verse  dealing  with  popular  topics 
and  incidents  of  daily  life,  the  more  considerable 
efforts  which  require  the  aid  of  intellect  to  support 
them  are  destitute  of  any  traces  of  vitality.  Some 
of  the  songs  addressed  to  the  Nile  and  to  the  flowers 

34 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
and  fruits  which  were  its  gifts  are,  as  Herr  Erman 
says,  "pleasant  enough  in  the  barren  desert  of 
Egyptian  Hterature,  where  most  of  the  vegetation 
dries  up  even  as  it  buds."  But,  if  we  turn  from  what 
is  produced  spontaneously  and  from  direct  observa- 
tion to  those  epic  narratives  which  derive  support 
from  intellectual  thought  and  study,  there  is  a  com- 
plete breakdown.  The  odes  describing  the  great 
deeds  of  conquering  kings,  though  holding  the  first 
place  in  public  estimation,  are  insufferably  dull  and 
wearisome,  consisting  as  they  do  of  eulogies  and 
compliments  so  gross  and  extravagant,  yet  so  hack- 
neyed by  use,  that  the  monotonously  reiterated 
sentences  almost  cease  to  convey  any  meaning 
whatever. 

The  reader  will  have  no  difficulty  in  amassing  A 
further  evidence.  Let  him  bear  the  main  outline 
of  the  argument  in  mind.  We  find,  clinging  to 
Egyptian  art  throughout  its  long  history,  qualities 
which  the  history  of  art  itself  teaches  us  to  be 
incompatible  with  intellectual  initiative,  qualities 
which  it  is  the  especial  function  of  intellectual 
initiative  to  dissipate.  From  this  we  argue  a  corre- 
sponding deficiency  in  Egyptian  life.  Egyptian  life, 
we  say,  like  the  art  which  mirrored  it,  will  exhibit 
progress  up  to  a  certain  point.  All  that  long  experi- 
ence under  unvarying  conditions  can  teach  it,  it  will 
know.  The  reiteration  of  identical  practices  for 
hundreds  of  generations  must  conduce  to  a  certain 
accuracy,  precision  and  finish.  This  we  find  in  the 
art,  for  it  is  the  peculiarity  of  that  art  that,  abiding 
in  the  archaic,  it  perfects  it,  so  that  the  rudeness  we 
usually  associate  with  this  phase  of  art  is  replaced 

35 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

by  smoothness  and  finish.  This,  therefore,  we  expect 
to  find  in  Hfe,  and  we  do  find  it.  In  all  the  opera- 
tions, expedients  and  employments  of  Egyptian 
life,  the  perfection  of  the  primitive  is  the  common 
attribute.  But  what  if  we  look  beyond  this  rule-of- 
thumb  procedure  for  any  indication  of  a  real  love  of 
thinking  ?  Does  not  life  stop  short  where  art  stops 
short  ?  We  have  glanced  at  religion.  Its  pre- 
dominating characteristic  is  the  tenacity  with  which 
it  cleaves  to  what  is  primitive  and  its  inability 
to  rise  to  the  height  of  an  intellectual  ideal.  We 
have  glanced  at  literature.  Its  primitively  simple 
examples  have  a  kind  of  merit,  but  its  attempts  at 
any  work  requiring  intellectual  aid  excite  nothing 
but  pity. 

On  these  grounds  let  the  reader  continue  to 
investigate.  Let  him  glance,  for  example,  at  mathe- 
matics. 

^*  Their  knowledge  of  the  science  at  this  time  [at 
the  time  of  the  Hyksos  invasion,  that  is]  was  not 
very  great,  and  we  doubt  whether  they  carried  their 
studies  much  further  even  under  the  new  Empire, 
for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  later  we  find  in 
the  agricultural  lists  of  the  temple  of  Edfou  the 
same  primitive  ideas  of  geometry  which  are  con- 
tained in  our  old  book.  Mathematics,  as  medicine, 
seems  to  have  remained  stationary  at  the  same  stage 
that  it  had  reached  under  the  old  Empire." 

Here  once  more  we  have  it — the  perpetuation  of  the 
primitive.  How  certain  eatables  were  to  be  divided 
as  payments  of  wages  ;  how  in  the  exchange  of  bread 
for  beer  the  respective  value  was  to  be  determined 

36 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 

when  converted  into  a  quantity  of  corn,  and  so 
on.  Such  are  the  limits  of  arithmetic  among  the 
Egyptians.  The  conclusion  is  that  "there  is  little 
to  be  said  for  their  theoretic  knowledge  of  this 
science,  but  their  practical  knowledge  sufficed  very 
well  for  the  simple  requirements  of  daily  life."  The 
science,  in  short,  stopped  at  the  archaic  stage  and 
never  reached  the  intellectual  stage.  So  again  with 
medicine  and  surgery ;  the  same  rudimentary  know- 
ledge, the  same  ignorance  of  theory  prevail  from 
the  beginning.  Thought  never  enters  into  the 
subject ;  its  place  is  taken  by  that  influence  which 
is  itself  the  strongest  proof  of  intellectual  inactivity, 
and  which  soaks  and  penetrates  Egyptian  life  in  all 
directions,  the  influence  of  witchcraft  and  magic. 
Apart  from  the  irrational  and  revolting  usages 
prescribed  by  witchcraft  and  magic,  Egyptian 
medicine  and  surgery  remain  fixed  and  content  in 
the  little  groove  of  knowledge  worn,  as  it  were,  by 
daily  experience.  So  once  more,  with  all  the  pro- 
cesses and  instruments  of  agriculture  on  which  the 
li^  of  the  country  depended,  a  perfected  routine  is 
the  hall-mark  of  all  of  them.  They  are  very  simple 
and,  as  far  as  they  go,  very  effective,  but  they  imply 
not  a  jot  of  that  power  of  independent  thought 
which,  in  so  many  ingenious  and  wonderful  ways, 
can  add  the  power  and  speed  of  mechanism  to 
man's  unaided  way  of  doing  things.  Egyptian 
pumps  and  ploughs  never  vary  from  the  dawn  of 
history.  They  indicate,  in  common  with  all  other 
agricultural  usages,  an  inherited  instinct,  such  as 
animals  in  large  measure  possess  also,  for  perfecting 
the  obvious  by  endless  reiteration,  but  with    one 

37 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
accord,  as  at  a  word  of  command,  they  stop  short 
at  the  point  where  intellect  and  thought  advance  to 
the  aid  of  routine. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  the  grasp  in  which 
Egyptian  art  is  held — the  iron  grasp  of  an  imme-^ 
morial usage — is  a  grasp  which  also  controls  Egyptian 
life  in  all  its  activities.  It  is  a  strange  and  weird 
spectacle,  this  spectacle  of  a  perpetualised  childhood, 
of  the  primitive,  pot-hook  stage,  not  developing  but 
everlastingly  repeating  itself.  It  demands,  if  we 
would  understand  it,  an  effort  of  comprehension 
on  our  part  which  it  is  extremely  difficult  for  us  to 
make.  How  can  we  realise  and  put  ourselves  in 
the  place  of  such  a  race  amid  such  surroundings  ? 
It  is  here  that  art  comes  to  our  aid.  As  I  began  by 
saying,  apart  altogether  from  its  aesthetic  value  or 
non-value,  art  has  its  human  interest,  the  interest 
attaching  to  it  as  an  expression  of  life  and  character. 
Addressed,  as  it  is,  directly  to  sight,  it  is  more  con- 
vincing than  any  other  evidence.  So  striking,  so 
living,  is  the  image  it  offers  us  of  racial  character 
that,  having  once  accepted  it  in  this  sense,  we  are 
drawn  out  of  ourselves  in  our  realisation  of  its 
significance  and  feel  ourselves  groping  towards  a 
true  understanding  of  a  race  of  different  mental 
gifts  to  ours.  Only  accept  it  in  this  sense,  as  a 
mirror  of  life,  we  must  if  we  wish  for  such  results. 

Here,  then,  let  the  reader  take  his  choice.  He 
has  two  courses  open  to  him.  He  may,  if  he\ 
chooses,  acclaim  Egyptian  art  for  its  aesthetic 
attainments.  He  may  persuade  himself  that  he 
finds  in  the  sausage-shaped  columns  and  squat 
entablatures  of  its  temples,  and  in  the  impossible 

38 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 
conventions  that  do  duty  for  human  figures,  all 
the  lofty  and  noble  ideas  which  are  bodied  forth 
in  Greek  architecture  and  sculpture.  He  may 
celebrate  the  great  principles  of  harmony,  unity, 
symmetry,  so  difficult  to  attain  to,  and  which 
are,  as  it  were,  the  very  fruit  of  intellect  and  its 
gifts  to  art,  which,  he  will  tell  us,  he  detects  in  the 
forms  and  proportions  of  Egyptian  columns.  But 
having  begun  thus  he  will  have  to  keep  it  up.  Art 
is  a  standard  of  life  and  will  insist  in  applying 
itself.  Whatever  interpretation  he  gives  it  he  will 
be  forced  into  expecting  the  equivalent  from  life. 
■  Inevitably,  if  he  starts  by  talking  about  the  harmony 
and  unity  of  Egyptian  architecture,  he  will  be  led 
on  into  applauding  the  intellectual  achievements 
and  exalted  civilisation  of  a  race  which  worshipped 
monkeys  and  snakes  and  never  got  beyond  two  in 
the  multiplication  table.  Inevitably  his  aesthetic 
estimate  will  pledge  him  to  the  assertion  that 
Egyptian  civilisation  was  equal  in  intellectual 
elements  to  the  civilisation  of  the  Greeks.  But 
can  any  one  in  his  senses,  any  one  who  takes  the 
trouble  to  inform  himself  what  Egyptian  civilisation 
contained  and  did  not  contain,  acquiesce  in  that  ? 
Where  are  the  great  Egyptian  poets,  historians, 
philosophers,  whom  we  are  to  place  on  a  level  with 
Sophocles,  Thucydides,  Plato  ?  Is  it  not  palpable 
that  the  level  attained  by  Greek  art  was  the  level 
attained  by  Greek  life  as  a  whole  ?  In  what  single 
particular  does  Egyptian  life  approach  that  level  ? 
Thus  caught  between  two  false  estimates,  one 
expedient  only,  the  last  and  deadliest  of  all,  lies 
open  to  him.    He  must  relax  the  meaning  of  his 

39 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
words.  An  enlightened  civilisation  must  mean 
whatever  Egyptian  life  will  let  it  mean,  and  the 
principles  of  art  whatever  Egyptian  art  will  let  them 
mean.  In  this  way  the  mischief  will  be  transferred 
from  things  to  standards,  and  his  idea  of  what 
constitutes  civilisation  and  what  constitutes  art  will 
be  alike  permanently  vitiated. 

Or  he  may  take  the  alternative  course.  Refusing 
to  be  intimidated  by  the  mere  duration  of  Egyptian 
history  and  the  mere  bulk  of  Egyptian  monuments ; 
remembering  that,  after  all,  time  is  only  of  value 
for  the  things  done  in  it,  and  bulk  only  of  value  for 
the  thought  poured  into  it,  he  may  set  himself  to 
judge  Egyptian  art  by  those  principles  which  have 
made  art  the  interpreter  of  the  best  that  is  in  human 
nature.  If  under  such  a  scrutiny  the  art  of  Egypt 
collapses,  if  he  finds  that  that  art  stops  short  always 
at  the  point  where  intellect  should  animate  and 
inspire  it,  he  will  indeed  surrender  the  idea  of 
deriving  any  aesthetic  instruction  or  delight  from  it, 
and  he  will  give  up  talking  of  the  principles  of  art 
in  connection  with  it.  But  its  value  will  be  far 
from  lost.  Now  that  he  has  gauged  its  character 
rightly,  Egyptian  art  has  become  a  touchstone  with 
which  to  test  the  civilisation  out  of  which  it  sprang. 
He  proceeds  to  apply  it  to  life,  and  immediately  he 
does  this  he  finds  that  his  estimate  of  art  turns  of 
its  own  accord  into  a  reliable  estimate  of  life.  What 
is  it,  he  will  ask  himself,  that  limits  Egyptian  ' 
civilisation,  that  heads  it  off  and  checks  it  at  every 
turn  ?  The  whole  of  that  civilisation  is  held  from 
first  to  last  in  the  bondage  of  a  strict  routine.  It  | 
deals  only  with  what  is  obvious.    Its  expedients  are 

4^ 


THE  TEMPLES  OF  EGYPT 

the  expedients  of  primitive  man  perfected  by  endless 
repetition.  In  every  department  of  life  the  advance 
up  to  the  limits  of  the  obvious  is  sure ;  but  in  every 
department  the  halt  at  these  limits  is  sure  too. 
Whence,  then,  this  limitation  ?  It  is  that  in  every 
line  of  progress — religion,  science,  literature,  agri- 
culture, what  you  will — at  the  stage  where  the  help 
of  intellect  should  be  forthcoming,  that  help  is 
withheld. 

Faithful  as  a  mirror,  Egyptian  art  reflects  the  life 
that  bore  it.  The  mental  stagnation  is  there,  and 
there,  too,  is  the  narrow  proficiency  of  perpetual 
iteration.  Is  it  so  easy  for  us  to  reconstruct  in  our 
imagination  the  picture  of  life  in  the  Nile  valley 
in  those  old  ages  that  we  should  slight  such  a  clue 
as  this  ?  To  reason,  to  think,  to  argue  is  a  slow 
and  doubtful  process.  To  see,  to  contemplate  in  its 
visible  proportions  and  limitations  the  thought  that 
inspired  an  ancient  civilisation  is  to  attain  to  an 
intimacy  of  understanding  open  to  us  by  no  other 
means. 


41 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 

The  river's  part  in  Egypt  :  The  art  and  civilisation  of  Egypt 
cast  in  the  same  mould  as  the  country  :  Dependence  of  Egypt 
on  the  Nile  :  Character  of  that  dependence  :  Nile  fertiHsation 
and  Nile  rule  :  All  occupations,  all  hopes  and  fears  dominated 
by  the  Nile  :  The  labours  of  the  Egyptians  regulated  by  its 
movements  from  month  to  month  :  It  turns  life  into  the 
repetition  of  a  perpetual  formula  :  Compare  the  rival  river- 
civilisation  of  Assyria  :  The  similarity  in  circumstances  and 
routine  of  life  :  Similarity  also  in  art  :  Limitations  of  Assyrian 
and  Egyptian  art  identical  :  Each  stops  at  the  point  where 
intellect  should  exert  its  informing  power  :  It  is  so,  too,  in  life 
and  character  :  The  influences  which  dominate  Egypt  focussed 
in  her  temples 

IN  the  last  chapter  I  endeavoured  to  show  that  the 
Hmitations  apparent  in  the  art  of  Egypt  were 
limitations  also  in  the  life  and  thought  of  Egypt. 
Egyptian  art  is  archaic  in  conception,  but  at  the 
same  time  it  is  perfect  in  execution.  The  combina- 
tion is  unusual.  Rudeness  of  execution  and  rude- 
ness of  conception  generally  go  together,  for  people 
who  get  beyond  the  rudimentary  stage  in 
execution — who  attain,  that  is,  to  delicacy  and 
refinement  of  execution — have,  as  a  rule,  got 
beyond  the  rudimentary  stage  in  conception  also. 
By  the  time  they  have  attained  perfect  manual  skill 
and  dexterity  they  have  attained  also  to  some 
knowledge  in  the  art  of  representation.  So,  when 
we  are  confronted  with  a  group  obviously  archaic  in 
conception,  made  up  of  childishly  impossible  figures, 
42 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 
attitudes  and  features,  we  instinctively  look  for  and 
expect  a  corresponding  deficiency  in  the  executive 
department.  But  although  in  the  matter  of  concep- 
tion Egyptian  art  remains  fixed  and  immovable  in 
the  archaic  stage,  there  is  nothing  archaic  in  its 
actual  execution.  This  is  perfect.  It  is  not  the 
hand  that  is  out.  The  practice  of  centuries  in  doing 
the  same  thing  over  and  over  again  has  trained  this 
to  complete  ductility.  It  is  the  mind,  the  guiding 
intelligence,  which  should  lead  the  way,  and  which 
among  all  progressive  races  does  lead  the  way  out 
of  the  archaic  stage  of  development,  which  is  at 
fault.  This  refuses  to  lead,  and  so,  for  Egyptian  art, 
no  advance  is  possible.  From  this  strange  com- 
bination of  intellectual  apathy  with  consummate 
craftsmanship  there  ensues  the  changelessness  we 
know  of.  Unled  by  thought,  Egyptian  art  can 
never  escape  the  archaic  rut.  It  is  unable  to 
develop,  but  on  the  other  hand  it  is  not  subject  to 
decay,  for  it  cannot  attain  the  phase  of  ripeness 
which  makes  decay  a  natural  process.  Perfect  yet 
primitive,  young  yet  very  old,  its  hoary  infancy 
defies  time.  It  is  the  image  of  routine,  of  the  deadly 
monotony  of  an  unthinking  iteration. 

But  having  got  thus  far  it  is  difficult  to  stop.  It 
is  difficult  to  realise  the  curt  and  definite  character 
of  these  limitations  of  Egyptian  art  and  life  without 
being  led  to  wonder  at  and  inquire  into  their  possible 
cause.  Why  did  the  Egyptian  mind  move  for  ever 
in  the  same  narrow  round  ?  Why  did  it  never  for 
a  moment  shake  off  the  ancient  tyranny  of  custom 
and  routine  which  kept  it  pinned  to  the  archaic  ? 
Such  questions  must  occur  to  all  of  us  who  give  our 

43 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

attention  to  the  subject,  but  they  will  occur  with 
particular  force  to  those  of  us  who  have  studied 
Egyptian  art  and  history  in  Egypt  itself.  For  those 
who  have  so  studied  have  had  an  opportunity  of 
noticing  a  similarity  not  easily  ignored.  They  have 
examined  the  figures  of  Egyptian  sculpture  petrified 
for  ever  in  attitudes  of  naive  and  childish  simplicity, 
and  then,  looking  round  them,  they  have  seen  the 
same  strange  simplicity  echoed  by  Nature  herself 
and  governing  the  very  construction  of  the  country. 
Running  all  through  the  compositions  of  Egyptian 
art  they  have  noticed  the  authority  of  a  perpetual 
routine.  Running  through  the  land  of  Egypt 
before  their  very  eyes  is  a  power  which,  ever  since 
the  country  was  created,  has  held  in  a  similar 
routine  the  lives  of  its  inhabitants.  The  art  and 
civilisation  of  Egypt  seem  cast  in  the  same  mould  as 
the  country  itself.  It  may  be  possible  to  exaggerate 
the  significance  of  such  a  similarity;  it  may  be 
difficult  exactly  to  define  its  meaning  and  influence  ; 
but  that  it  exists,  that  it  has  significance  and  that  it 
is  worth  some  thought  and  attention,  I  think  no  one 
will  deny. 

There  is  in  Egypt,  studded  along  the  river  banks, 
a  kind  of  pump,  called  the  "shayduf,"  which  is 
entirely  in  keeping  in  its  simplicity  with  Egyptian 
traditions,  for  it  consists  merely  of  a  tall,  tapering 
pole  working  on  a  pivot  and  with  a  bucket  dangling 
by  a  long  rope  from  the  tip  of  it.  Unseen  in  the 
shadow  of  the  bank  the  peasant  hauls  upon  the 
rope  till  the  lofty  pole  is  bent  low  over  the  river 
and  the  bucket  is  plunged  into  its  current,  when, 
releasing  his  hold,  the  point  soars  up  of  its  own 

44 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 
accord,  lifting  the  full  bucket  to  the  top  of  the 
bank.  As  the  simple  mechanism  works  and  the 
tall  points  rhythmically  prostrate  and  erect  them- 
selves, they  emit  a  thin,  whining  note,  the  genuine 
whine  of  Oriental  supplication  which  runs  all 
through  the  East ;  and  this  bowing  and  whining 
are,  to  the  traveller  on  the  river,  a  perpetual  ac- 
companiment. Long  before  the  last  tall  point  has 
disappeared  in  the  distance,  the  next,  with  its 
perpetual  bowing  motion,  heaves  in  sight,  and  long 
before  the  last  plaintive  cry  dies  into  silence  the 
note  is  taken  up  and  repeated.  And  so  the  sacred 
chorus  and  the  low  salaaming  are  carried  on,  while 
to  that  motion  and  refrain  the  precious  water  is 
ladled  out  to  the  thirsty  crops. 

But  these  shaydufs  are  more  than  a  curious 
feature  of  Nile  scenery.  They  may  be  said  to  utter, 
adequately  enough,  a  sentiment  in  which  the  whole 
country  is  steeped.  Their  adoring  motion  is  latent 
in  every  plant  and  tree,  and,  in  their  song  of 
supplication, 

"  They  join  their  vocal  worship  to  the  choir 
Of  creatures  wanting  voice." 

The  sentiment  thus  expressed  is  the  sentiment 
which  a  stranger  in  the  country,  if  he  is  not  always 
to  remain  a  stranger,  has  need  to  understand. 
It  is  so  easy  to  call  a  thing  by  a  name  and 
dismiss  it,  to  state  a  fact  and  imagine  we  have 
extracted  its  contents  !  Egypt,  said  Herodotus,  is 
'*  the  gift  of  the  river."  That  hits  it,  and  that  seems 
sufficient.  Certainly  the  fact  is  obvious  enough. 
Egyptian   geography  was  made  for  children.     Its 

45 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
distinct  arrangement,  amid  the  jumble  of  the  earth's 
surface,  attracts  instinctive  attention.  All  are  aware 
of  the  winding  valley,  so  narrow  yet  so  green  and 
succulent,  a  mere  ribbon  of  verdure,  with  the  tall 
mountain  chains  flanking  it  to  left  and  right,  and 
beyond  these  the  endless  expanse  of  yellow  desert. 
All  are  aware  that  this  strip  of  fertility  is  of  the 
Nile's  creating,  that  the  great  turbid  river  has 
brought  each  ounce  of  the  thirty-foot-deep  black 
soil  which  constitutes  Egypt  from  mountain  sides 
and  summits  far  distant  to  deposit  it  here  in  its 
place.  Every  one  is  aware,  too,  that  the  Nile 
watches  solicitously  over  its  offspring,  and  in  its 
annual  inundations  fertilises  and  refreshes  the  land 
of  its  creation.  What  have  we  to  add  to  such  a 
summary  ?  Is  there  any  mystery  to  explain  ?  Are 
any  of  the  facts  difficult  to  understand  ?  Have  we  left 
anything  out  of  account  ?  No,  there  is  no  mystery 
and  nothing  to  add.  The  Nile  is  Egypt's  sole 
architect.  It  was  the  Nile,  unassisted,  which  laid 
deep  and  dark  the  foundations  of  the  old  Egyptian 
civilisation.  The  circumstances,  indeed,  seem  all  to 
have  been  arranged  and  thought  out  as  if  to  test  the 
river's  capacity.  The  necessary  material  was  placed 
at  its  disposal,  the  necessary  area  marked  off  for  its 
action.  All  risk  of  interference  was  strictly  provided 
against,  and  rain,  snow,  frost,  thaw,  volcanic  erup- 
tions, streams  and  torrents — all  the  natural  agents 
and  elemental  powers  which  spread,  distribute,  crack 
up  and  intermix  the  ingredients  of  continents — were 
rigorously  excluded  and  fenced  off  from  the  narrow 
domain  consecrated  to  the  river's  experiment. 
That  the  result  of  such  a  construction  should  be 

46 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 
of  striking,  almost  ludicrous  simplicity,  that  it  can  be 
grasped,  as  a  fact,  by  any  one  who  gives  a  moment's 
attention  to  the  matter,  and  that  it  is,  as  a  fact, 
covered  and  explained  by  our  old  formula,  the  "  gift 
of  the  river,"  we  admit.  But  there  is  all  the  difference 
in  the  world  between  stating  the  Nile's  action  as  a 
fact  and  realising  it  in  its  influence  and  consequences. 
The  most  obvious  facts  are  precisely  those  which  in 
their  consequences  are  most  important.  It  is  the 
subtle  and  the  complex  that  are  easily  exhausted. 
In  the  simplicity  of  the  Nile  valley  lies  its  claim  to 
our  patient  attention. 

Let  me  then  urge  the  reader,  who,  because 
Egyptian  geography  is  as  plain  as  a  pikestaff,  would 
dismiss  it  from  his  mind,  to  dwell  on  it  a  moment 
longer.  It  is  because  it  is  as  plain  as  a  pikestaff 
that  it  is  worth  dwelling  on,  for  it  is  because  it  is 
plain  that  it  is  powerful.  What  he  sees  at  a  glance 
others  have  seen  at  a  glance  too.  The  millions 
who  have  lived  in  this  valley,  whose  civilisation,  as 
we  say,  was  the  oldest  on  the  globe,  and  the  vestiges 
of  whose  immense  architecture  still  attract  our 
wonder  and  curiosity,  they  saw  it  at  a  glance.  The 
dominion  of  the  Nile  over  Egypt  was  a  fact  which 
stared  each  one  of  them  in  the  face.  Every  unit  in 
those  teeming  millions  lived  out  his  whole  life  under 
the  shadow  of  that  great  fact.  Not  only  did  he 
himself  never  escape  the  consciousness  of  the  Nile's 
supremacy,  but  he  had  probably  no  notion  that  it 
ever  could  by  any  possibility  be  escaped.  The  life 
of  the  Nile  valley  was  extraordinarily  self-contained. 
The  desert  precluded  all  communication  east  and 
west,  and,  though  the  junction  of  the  river  with  the 

47 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

sea  might  hold  out  an  invitation  to  foreign  enter- 
prise, the  invitation  was  neglected.  The  Egyptians 
were  no  mariners.  Their  attention  was  concen- 
trated in  their  valley,  and  its  bounds  became  the 
natural  confines  of  their  thought.  Generation  after 
generation  might  pass  and  no  whisper  from  the 
outer  world,  no  hint  that  existence  was  possible 
save  on  the  bounty  of  the  river  need  ever  reach 
the  dwellers  by  the  Nile.  The  reader  who  considers 
the  obvious  and  easily  dismissed  fact  of  the  Nile's 
function  in  Egypt  in  this  sense,  who  considers  it, 
that  is  to  say,  in  its  relation  to  the  Egyptian  people 
and  to  Egyptian  history,  will  see  that  the  more 
attentively  he  so  considers  it  the  deeper  is  the 
significance  it  acquires.  To  understand  in  some 
slight  degree  the  old  race  of  temple  and  pyramid 
builders,  to  attain  to  their  point  of  view,  and,  if  it 
were  possible,  to  see  life  for  a  moment  as  they  saw 
it,  must  be  the  wish  at  times  of  every  traveller  in 
Egypt.  May  it  not  be  that  one  way  of  achieving 
that  end  may  be  to  lay  aside  for  a  little  while  the 
studies  and  researches  of  Egyptology  and  submit 
ourselves  to  the  conditions  and  influences  which 
made  the  Egyptians  what  they  were  ?  After  all,  the 
Nile  is  the  greatest  Egyptologist  of  all.  It  alone  is 
master  of  its  subject.  Suppose  we  sit  down  on  its 
bank  by  the  side  of  the  shaydufs  and  consider  for  a 
moment  its  methods  and  ideas. 

Just  opposite  to  us,  in  a  bend  of  the  river,  showing 
plainly  on  the  pale  pebbly  background,  are  traced  a 
few  level  streaks  of  black  earth,  much  like  the  dark 
level  streaks  of  one  of  De  Wint's  water-colours. 
These  were  laid  down  during  the  last  inundation. 

48 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 
A  hundred  yards  lower  down,  where  the  current  is 
slacker,   is  another  little   deposit,  more  solid,  and 
crops  are  sprouting  already  in  the  dark  earth.    Such 
signs  as  these  along  the  Nile  banks  are  frequent, 
and  in  some  places  where  the  river,  repenting  its 
generosity,  threatens  to  wash  away  the  soil  it  has 
deposited,  rough  stone  jetties  are  thrust  out  from 
the  bank  in  the  hope  of  protecting  it.    Rude  as  they 
are,  considerable  toil  must  have  gone  to  their  con- 
struction, nor  do  they  shield  more  than  a  few  yards 
of  shore,  and  that  precariously.     But  the  prize  is 
worth  the  pains.     There  is  no  soil  in  the  world  to 
compare  with  the  black  Nile  mud.    It  tends,  indeed, 
rather   to   quantity  than   quality  of  produce,   but 
how  imposing,  and  in  its  way  grandiose,  is  the  mere 
affluence   and   bulk    of    the   threefold   crops   with 
which  it  is  perennially  loaded.     Whatever  one  may 
have  seen   in   the  way  of  fertility — to  the  writer 
recurs  by  way  of  samples  the  memory  of  the  vine- 
yards of  Algeria,  the  rice-fields  of  the  Ceylon  low 
country,  the  Constantia  fruit  gardens  under  Table 
Mountain,   the    rich,    small,    concentrated    Sahara 
oases — still  there   must   always  remain   something 
unique  in  Egypt's  brimming  cornucopia-like  abun- 
dance.    Here,  where  germination  and  growth  are  so 
rapid,  and  harvests  succeed  each  other  so  quickly. 
Nature  seems  always  giving.     Not  by  long  processes 
of  reclaiming  and  improving  has  she  to  be  wrought 
up  to  the  pitch  of  one  doubtful  harvest  in  the  year. 
She  is  in  the  bounteous  mood.     There  are  no  diffi- 
culties or  delays.    The  rich,  moist  mould  and  the 
hot  sun  act  like  a  sort  of  magic.    The  husbandman 
sows  his  seed  and  runs  home  to  whet  his  scythe. 

D  49 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

Egypt's  lap  is  always  full.  Her  fat  acres  are 
burdened,  almost  uninterruptedly,  with  harvests 
more  succulent  and  of  a  freer,  larger  growth  than 
the  harvests  of  other  climates. 

Does  the  reader  remember  the  country  about 
Asiut  or  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Luxor  ?  Does  he 
remember  the  wheat,  how  tall  and  solid  it  grew, 
how  dark  and  rich  the  gold  wave  of  its  level  surface, 
how  beautifully,  by  contrast,  the  little  tufted  islands 
of  dark  green  palms  stood  up  in  it  ?  And  the  tall 
brakes  of  sugar-cane  where  the  harvesting  was  going 
on,  each  great  stalk,  ringed  like  bamboos,  rising 
nine  or  ten  feet  high,  making  a  glowing  impene- 
trable thicket,  their  long  narrow  leaves,  light  green 
or  baked  to  yellow  by  the  sun,  and  the  lower  ones, 
white  and  dry  and  long  since  dead,  hanging  about 
the  stems  thickening  the  rich  jungle.  Men  and 
children,  bronzed  to  copper-colour,  worked  among 
the  golden  canes,  and  camels  squatted  on  their 
haunches  browsing  and  waiting  for  their  loads. 
The  power  of  sun  and  soil  shone  in  the  picture,  in 
the  sugar-stored  canes,  in  the  tawny,  yellow  foliage, 
in  the  Arabs'  smooth  limbs  and  blackened  faces. 
Here  was  something  more  than  immediate  and 
visible  plenty.  Here  in  the  glowing  light,  the  rich 
mould,  the  ample  vegetation,  was  the  habit  of  ripe- 
ness, the  signs  of  nothing  hardening  and  annealing 
in  Nature,  but  of  lavish  abundance  and  almost 
effortless  increase. 

Such  scenes  have  an  influence  of  their  own, 
and  human  nature  still  responds  to  their  appeal. 
Divorced  as  it  is  from  religious  sanction  and  dis- 
owned  by  the  spiritual  faculty,  we   can   still   per- 

50 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 

ceive  what  there  must  have  been  comforting  and 
sustaining  in  the  old  pagan  love  of  Nature  and 
blind,  childlike  trust  in  her  generosity.  Not  lacking 
in  certain  healthy  consequences  was  man's  identifi- 
cation of  his  own  instincts  with  the  natural  processes 
around  him,  and  the  sanction  he  found  in  Nature 
for  impulses  which  since  those  days  have  undergone 
the  severest  discipline.  The  very  rankness  of  those 
early  faiths,  a  rankness  as  the  reader  will  find  who 
turns  over  the  pages  of  M.  Palanque's  book  on  Nile 
work,  peculiarly  characteristic  of  Egypt,  disguises  a 
certain  insight  and  truth.  Nature's  scheme  embraces 
man.  Our  tissues  share  with  the  tissues  of  plant 
and  tree.  Here  in  the  jungle  of  rich  vegetation, 
lying  on  the  hot,  dark  earth,  with  the  sensation  of 
increase  and  fruition  rife  in  all  we  see,  impregnating 
the  atmosphere,  inspiring  every  branch  and  leaf  and 
flexible  tall  stem  with  an  almost  conscious  vitality, 
here  where  Nature  is  so  strong  and  the  call  to 
human  flesh  of  encircling  earth  so  eloquent,  it  is 
easy  to  appreciate  the  alluring  power  of  the  old 
natural  forms  of  faith.  Man  has  always  taken 
refuge  in  Nature  before  he  learnt  to  take  refuge  in 
God.  But  the  upward  step  from  Nature  to  God, 
does  it  not  imply  a  certain  dissatisfaction  with 
Nature,  a  realisation  of  the  inadequacy  of  her 
philosophy  ?  It  must  have  been  difficult  for  any 
such  dissatisfaction,  any  such  feeling  of  inadequacy, 
to  originate  amid  these  scenes  of  abundance.  It 
must  have  been  very  difficult  to  escape  the  embrace 
of  Nature  when  that  embrace  was  as  warm  and 
close  and  comforting  as  it  is  here. 

Bearing  in  mind,  then,  the  capacity  and  effects  of 

SI 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
the  sediment  with  which  the  Nile  is  freighted,  it  is 
small  wonder  that  those  who  live  along  its  banks 
should  be  on  the  look-out  for  a  share  in  it,  and  be 
quick  to  grab  and  guard  it  as  soon  as  it  comes  within 
reach.  Nevertheless,  the  thought  I  had  in  my  mind 
when  I  drew  the  reader's  attention  to  the  light  streaks 
of  earth  along  the  opposite  shore  was  less  of  that 
earth's  value  and  preciousness  than  of  the  Nile  as  a 
power,  still  in  this  day  active,  still  carrying  on  the 
old  work  in  the  old  way.  This  is  a  point  which 
those  who  are  strangers  to  the  country  or  who  only 
visit  it  cursorily  are  apt  to  overlook,  yet  which  is 
bound  to  influence  most  strongly  those  who  dwell 
in  the  river's  presence  and  profit  by  its  bounty. 
To  the  dwellers  in  the  Nile  valley  the  Nile  is  less 
the  architect  of  their  country  than  the  fertiliser 
of  this  year's  crops.  They  do  not  think  of  Egypt 
as  the  gift  of  the  Nile  :  they  think  of  these  onions 
or  these  grapes  as  the  gift  of  the  Nile.  They  realise 
the  river  as  a  force  actively  exerting  its  energy  at 
the  present  moment.  No  doubt  the  periodical  exer- 
tions of  the  inundation  is  the  event  which  most 
vividly  illustrates  this  present  energy;  indeed,  it  would 
be  difficult  to  imagine  a  phenomenon  more  striking 
and  extraordinary,  whether  it  be  considered  in  its 
practical  effects  or  as  a  kind  of  spectacular  display. 
Totally  at  variance  with  all  our  notions  of  floods 
and  their  disastrous  consequences,  the  Nile  over- 
flows its  banks  only  to  bless  and  fertilise.  The 
river  is  never  quiescent  and  at  rest.  It  is  always 
either  preparing  for  or  recovering  from  its  periodical 
exertions.  During  the  later  summer  months  it  begins 
to  feel  the  effects  of  the  spring  rains  among  the 
5^ 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 

Abyssinian  uplands,  and  its  current,  swelling  by 
degrees,  is  charged  with  dark  red  sediment.  By 
October  it  attains  its  maximum,  and  rising  above 
its  containing  banks,  which  are  raised  by  deposits 
of  the  heavier  sediment  rather  above  the  inland, 
it  inundates  the  low-lying  plains,  replenishing  the 
dried  canals  and  leaving  behind  it  on  its  retirement 
the  precious  cargo  it  was  charged  with  in  the  shape 
of  a  thin  coating  of  glossy  mud  spread  over  the 
surface  of  the  land.  Then,  its  task  performed,  it 
gradually  recedes,  and  its  current  grows  slowly 
clearer  and  shallower  and  weaker  until  the  time 
comes  when  the  old  impulse  from  afar  once  more 
admonishes  it  to  another  effort. 

Thus  in  year-long  respirations  the  river's  body 
expands  and  contracts,  while  up  and  down  the 
country  a  busy  peasantry  utilises  and  exhausts  the 
last  donation  and  eagerly  expect  the  next.  What 
stranger  can  sympathise  with  or  fully  comprehend 
so  strict  a  dependence  on  the  river's  bounty  ?  The 
Nile  is  the  only  active  and  visible  factor  in  Egypt's 
prosperity,  the  only  factor  that  seems  endowed 
with  intelligence  and  initiative.  Changes  of  weather 
vary  only  from  a  little  hotter  to  a  little  less  hot. 
The  husbandman  can  trust  securely  in  the  long 
succession  of  blue,  unclouded  days.  The  conditions 
of  his  labour  are  fixed  and  steadfast.  Only  the 
Nile,  in  its  coming  and  going,  varies  sufficiently  to 
concentrate  attention  and  anxiety  on  its  movements. 
Two  or  three  feet  more  or  less  in  the  normal  rise  of 
the  river  means  dams  burst  and  irrigation  works 
destroyed,  or  great  tracts  of  land  left  dry  and  unfer- 
tilised.    Hence  the  villagers  and  peasantry  of  the 

53 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
valley  never  pray  for  a  good  harvest  but  for  a 
"good  Nile."  Granted  this,  the  harvest  follows 
with  mechanical  infallibility.  There  is  no  anxiety 
on  that  score.  It  is  on  the  operations  of  the  river 
that  all  eyes  are  fixed,  and  round  which  the  hopes 
and  fears,  the  expectations  and  anxieties  of  the 
Egyptian  people  circulate. 

I  know  not  how  to  convey  a  sense  of  the  contrast 
always  in  view  of  the  traveller  on  the  Nile,  between 
the  luxuriant  vegetation  of  the  valley  and  the  hard 
mineral-white  sterility  of  the  limestone  ranges 
which  enclose  it.  The  breadth  of  the  fertile  tract 
varies  in  places  considerably.  Sometimes  the 
mountains  stand  well  back  from  the  river's  course, 
framing  in  their  tall  bare  walls,  which,  with  well- 
marked  tiers  of  strata,  often  have  the  look  of 
amphitheatres  of  regular  masonry,  ample  plains 
of  verdure  and  palm  groves,  and  small  clustering 
villages.  Sometimes  the  great  bluffs  project  toward 
the  current  as  if  they  would  threaten  to  bar  its 
course,  and  slanting  cataracts  of  rock  and  stone 
shelve  down  almost  to  the  river's  brink.  But  the 
aspect  of  the  hills  themselves  never  varies  in  its 
dazzling  and  lifeless  brilliance.  They  have  their 
own  beauty.  When  the  flush  of  sunrise  or  sunset 
resting  upon  them  warms  their  cold  hue  to  a  rosy 
pink,  and  in  the  pure  air  the  blue  shadows  of  their 
defiles  are  inlaid  with  the  exactitude  of  fragments 
of  lapis  lazuli  set  in  an  old  ivory  carving,  or  when 
the  icy  moonlight,  which  turns  night  in  Egypt  into 
a  colourless  day,  lends  them  the  wan  and  spectral 
aspect  peculiar  to  that  hour, — then,  at  such  times, 
they  gleam  with  a  weird,  uncanny  loveliness  which 

S4 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 

often  rivets  the  eye  on  them  with  a  kind  of  wonder. 
But  still  the  loveliness  is  one  that  seems  altogether 
removed  from  human  life  and  sympathy,  and  from 
the  human  lot.  It  is  a  deathlike  beauty,  signifi(  ant, 
in  a  way,  of  the  part  played  by  those  mountains  in 
Egyptian  history.  For  all  through  that  history  the 
rule  that  the  valley  was  for  the  living,  the  hill  for 
the  dead,  held  good.  Here  among  these  white 
precipices  and  defiles  are  the  cities  and  habitations 
of  the  departed,  who  dwell  here  much  as  they  dwelt 
in  life,  in  greater  or  less  state ;  princes  in  noble 
halls,  all  carved  and  painted  with  their  deeds  of 
prowess,  and  peasants  in  mere  holes  in  the  sand 
appropriate  to  their  insignificant  lot  in  the  world. 
Seldom  has  the  writer  spent  a  stranger  day 
than  one  passed  among  the  mountain  cemeteries 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  ancient  Lycopolis. 
Perhaps  a  few  words  copied  from  a  diary  kept  at 
the  time  may  help  the  reader  who  has  not  visited 
the  country  to  realise  one  of  its  more  curious 
aspects. 

"  The  western  range  of  hills  here,  near  Asiut,  pro- 
jects in  a  shoulder  or  big  bluff,  which  is  perforated 
in  all  directions  with  old  tombs.  The  ground-sur- 
face of  loose  stone  and  dust  is  divided  at  intervals 
bv  cliffs  of  limestone  rock  in  which  the  tombs  are 
bored  and  tunnelled.  Wherever  fresh  blasting  and 
landslips  have  laid  bare  the  rock  more  borings  of 
the  same  kind  are  exposed.  The  hill  is  honey- 
combed with  them.  Bones,  skulls  and  ribs  litter 
the  ground  so  thickly  that  it  seems  in  many  places 
to  consist  of  little  else.    Shreds  and  patches   of 

55 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
mummy-cloth  lie  about  in  all  directions,  sometimes 
still  tightly  twined  round  shrivelled  arms  and 
shoulders.  It  is  a  Golgotha,  where  the  dead  con- 
gregate as  thickly  as  the  living  in  the  valley.  And 
for  their  use  it  is  exclusively  preserved.  No  leaf  or 
blade  of  grass  grows  here.  Nothing  living  intrudes 
to  question  death's  absolute  supremacy." 

In  later  centuries,  it  is  true,  the  living  made  their 
abode  among  these  ranges,  and  the  tombs  of  the 
ancient  Egyptians  became  the  tenements  of  Christian 
hermits.  Yet  these  later  lodgers  were  scarcely  an 
exception  to  the  old  rule,  since  at  the  least  it  was 
appropriate  that  those  who  made  it  their  aim  to  die 
to  the  things  of  this  world  should  turn  to  those  gaunt 
hills  which  from  time  immemorial  had  been  the 
abode  of  death. 

The  journal  quoted  from  goes  on  to  describe  the 
view  from  that  place  of  skulls,  and  how  the  writer, 
perched  on  the  white  crest  of  the  hill  with  his  feet 
in  bone-dust,  looked  down  on  a  scene  of  fertihty, 
rich  even  for  Egypt : 

"Far  to  north  and  south,  level  as  water  except 
where  small  mud-hut  villages  in  their  groves  of 
feather-headed  palms  are  dotted  in  relief  upon  its 
surface,  stretches  the  long  band  of  luscious  green 
through  which  the  Nile  rolls,  and  in  which  seems 
gathered  and  compressed  all  the  fertility  which 
should  have  been  scattered  over  the  surrounding 
hills  and  desert.  The  valley  for  the  living,  the  hill 
for  the  dead.  The  distinction  of  function  is  sharp 
and  is  as  sharply  marked  in  Nature.  As  far,  to  a 
yard,  as  the  Nile  reaches  in  its  annual  floods,  the 

56 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 

fertile  soil  extends.  You  can  stand  with  one  foot 
in  perennial  crops  and  the  other  in  desert  sand. 
There  is  no  gainsaying  evidence  like  this.  No 
peasant  who  watches  the  water  flow  and  ebb  but 
knows,  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt,  from  what 
beneficent  power  all  that  makes  life  possible  pro- 
ceeds." 

Every  way  we  look  at  it  we  are  brought  back  to 
the  thought  of  the  Nile  as  a  living,  ever-active  power, 
a  power  unmistakably  exerting  its  influence  from 
day  to  day  and  year  to  year  over  the  life  and 
fortunes  of  every  dweller  in  the  valley.  This  must 
always  have  been,  and  must  always  be,  the  Egyptian 
point  of  view.  The  fact  that  the  river  has  brought 
Egypt  grain  by  grain  out  of  the  heart  of  Africa,  to 
lay  it  down  ripe  for  cultivation  in  this  sequestered 
corner  of  the  continent,  however  interesting  to  a 
student,  is  not  likely  to  command  the  attention  of 
the  average  populace^of  the  country.  These  ancient 
geological  events  are  easily  forgotten.  We  are  not 
concerned  about  such  stale  and  antique  favours,  but 
about  those  we  receive  to-day  or  expect  to-morrow. 
What  seized  the  attention  of  the  inhabitants  of  this 
valley,  what  profoundly  attracted  their  imagination, 
and  in  the  course  of  ages  came  to  exert  a  distinct 
influence,  perhaps,  on  their  character  and  the  develop- 
ment of  their  civilisation,  was  not  the  thought  of 
what  the  Nile  had  done,  but  what  the  Nile  was 
doing.  It  was  such  everyday  and  common  sights 
as  we  have  been  describing,  it  was  the  sight  of  the 
new-laid  ribs  of  mould  along  the  river's  course,  that 
had  to  be  cherished  and  preserved,  the  sight  of  the 

57 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
contrast  ever  in  their  eyes  between  the  deathlike 
sterility  of  mountain  and  desert  and  the  luxuriant 
productiveness  of  the  fertilised  valley ;  it  was  the 
realisation  of  the  inexhaustible  fecundity  of  the  rich 
soil  brought  and  given  to  them  by  the  river  ;  it  was 
sights  and  thoughts  like  these  which  must  have 
been  continually  impressing  and  influencing  the 
minds  and  imaginations  of  the  Egyptians.  Above 
all  it  must  have  been  the  spectacle  of  the  eagerly 
awaited  annual  inundation,  which  must  most 
effectively  have  driven  into  their  consciousness  the 
Nile's  constant  energy  and  consistent  purpose. 
"  Blessed,"  begins  the  old  Nile  hymn — 

'*  Blessed  be  the  good  God, 

The  heaven-loving  Nile, 

The  Father  of  the  Gods  of  the  holy  Nine 

Dwelling  on  the  waters. 

The  plenty,  wealth,  and  food  of  Egypt. 
He  maketh  everybody  live  by  himself, 

Riches  are  in  his  path. 

And  plenteousness  is  in  his  fingers ; 

The  pious  are  rejoiced  at  his  coming. 
Thou  art  alone  and  self-created, 

One  knoweth  not  whence  thou  art. 
But  on  the  day  thou  comest  forth  and  openest 
thyself 

Everybody  is  rejoicing. 
Thou  art  a  lord  of  many  fish  and  gifts, 

And  thou  bestowest  plenteousness  in  Egypt. 
The  cycle  of  the  holy  Nine  knoweth  not  whence 
thou  art. 

Thou  art  their  life. 

58 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 

For  when   thou   comest  their  offerings  are  re- 
doubled 
And  their  altars  filled, 
And  they  are  shouting  when  thou  appearest." 

The  second  stanza  of  the  hymn  opens  with  the 
lines  : 

"  He  giveth  light  on  his  coming  from  darkness ; 
In  the  pastures  of  his  cattle 
His  might  produceth  all : 
What  was  not  his  moisture  bringeth  to  light "  ; 

and  concludes  with  the  acclamation  : 

"  Shine  forth,  shine  forth,  O  Nile  !  shine  forth  I 
Giving  life  to  his  oxen  by  the  pastures  ! 
Shine  forth  in  glory,  O  Nile  ! " 

Such  were  the  thoughts  of  the  Egyptians,  such 
their  attitude  of  mind  in  presence  of  the  great  river, 
ever  active,  ever  creative,  in  whose  hands  were  food 
and  riches,  and  at  whose  coming  the  pious  were 
rejoiced.  A  traveller  in  the  country,  if  he  be  sus- 
ceptible at  least  to  natural  influences,  cannot  remain 
long  in  the  land  without  in  some  degree  sympathising 
with  those  thoughts  and  feelings.  On  him,  too,  as 
he  observes  on  all  sides  the  evidences  of  the  Nile's 
creative  and  renovating  influence,  is  cast,  tentatively 
yet  perceptibly,  the  old  Egyptian  spell.  Conscious 
of  its  power  it  is  inevitable  that  he  should  look  back 
into  Egyptian  history  for  symptoms  of  its  effect. 
Such  an  influence,  an  influence  so  potent,  so  clearly 
defined,  so  strictly  limited,  could  not,  as  he  instinc- 
tively feels,  fail  to  leave  recognisable  traces  on  the 
race  subjected  to  it, 

59 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

And  when  with  this  thought  in  his  mind  he 
dips  into  history,  almost  immediately,  as  the  main 
characteristics  of  Egyptian  life  pass  in  review,  there 
appears  something  in  their  aspect — a  huge  grotesque 
simplicity,  a  dreadful  yet  imposing  monotony,  as 
though  life  were  the  repetition  of  an  endless  formula 
which  strikes  him  as  somehow  a  rude  reflection  of 
the  natural  conditions  he  sees  around  him.  In  vain 
he  dismisses  the  idea  as  an  illusion.  The  longer  he 
stays  in  the  country  the  more  his  imagination  is 
impressed  by  the  weird  regularity  of  its  arrange- 
ment. By  degrees  he  comes  to  realise  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  river's  dominion,  the  dependence 
of  all  life  upon  its  rise  and  fall,  and  how,  by  that 
monotonous  action,  life  is  held  rigorously  to  the 
reiteration  of  the  same  processes  and  expedients. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  gives  himself  to  the  study 
of  Egyptian  civilisation,  so  strangely  characterised 
by  its  acquiescence  in  primitive  routine  ;  and  the 
more  he  thus  occupies  himself  the  more  difficult  he 
will  find  it  to  evade  the  sense  of  likeness  between 
the  Egypt  he  sees,  or  Nature's  Egypt,  and  the 
Egypt  he  reads  of,  which,  in  its  various  manifesta- 
tions of  art,  literature  and  science,  and  so  on,  we 
think  of  as  man's  Egypt.  Man's  Egypt  persists  in 
mimicking  Nature's,  and  in  the  mechanical  routine 
which  controls  Egyptian  civilisation  the  effect  of 
surrounding  conditions  of  life  seems  only  too  clearly 
apparent. 

And  why  should  this  not  be  so  ?  How  often  has 
it  been  observed  that  regularity  of  occupation  leaves 
its  traces  on  the  character,  that,i  for  example,  men 
who  are  constantly  occupied  in  tending  machinery, 

60 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 
whose  movements  are  dictated,  without  need  of 
volition  or  conscious  thought  on  their  side,  by  the 
movements  of  the  mechanism  they  serve — how 
often  has  it  been  observed  that  such  people  take 
on  the  nature  of  the  mechanism  itself,  that  they  are,. 
as  it  were,  assimilated  by  it,  that  they  become  perfect 
and  dexterous  within  their  own  groove,  but  incapable 
of  breaking  away  from  that  groove.  As  day  by  day 
and  year  by  year  their  attention  is  governed  by  the 
revolution  of  a  cylinder  or  the  rise  and  fall  of  a 
crank,  do  they  not  grow,  as  we  significantly  put 
it,  absorbed  in  their  occupation,  and  does  not  all 
capacity  for  independent  thought  desert  them? 
Certainly  of  all  countries  in  the  world  Egypt  is 
that  in  which  Nature  approaches  most  nearly  to 
mechanical  regularity  and  mechanical  reiteration. 
The  mathematical  arrangement  of  the  country, 
the  absence  of  all  cross-purposes  and  conflicting 
elements,  the  clock-like  punctuality  of  the  annual 
floods,  are  natural  facts  and  conditions  which  not 
only  have  always  controlled  and  dominated  Egyptian 
life,  but  which  seem  to  have  impressed  on  lite  itself 
their  own  rule  of  unprogressive,  unvarying  rej5etition. 
To  several  writers  this  idea  of  Egypt's  mechanical 
influence  and  of  the  natural  effects  of  such  an  influ- 
ence seems  to  have  occurred.  Life  on  the  banks  of 
the  Nile,  as  Professor  Sayce  tells  us,  is  a  life  of 
steady  but  curiously  regular  toil.  The  peasant  is 
timed  by  the  river.  What  he  does  must  fit  in  with 
what  the  river  does.  The  consequence  is  his  work 
is  "  monotonously  regular  "  to  a  degree  very  difficult 
for  us  to  realise.  "There  are  no  unexpected  breaks 
in  it ;  no  moments  when  a  sudden  demand  is  made 

6i 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

for  exceptional  labour.  The  farmer's  year  is  all 
mapped  out  for  him  beforehand  ;  what  his  fore- 
fathers have  done  for  unnumbered  centuries  before 
him,  he,  too,  has  to  do  almost  to  a  day."  To 
such  causes  may  have  been  due,  perhaps,  Professor 
Sayce  thinks,  that  "incapacity  for  abstract  thought" 
which  he  distinguishes  as  characteristic  of  Egyptian 
civilisation.  It  is  strange  that  Professor  Sayce  did 
not  push  home  the  idea.  He  throws  it  out  as  a  hint 
in  the  early  pages  of  his  book,  but  does  not  recur  to 
it.  Yet  evidently,  if  there  is  anything  in  it,  it  is  of 
vital  consequence.  We  find  again,  in  Mr.  Hogarth's 
thoughtful  and  learned  work  on  the  Nearer  East,  a 
passage  of  much  the  same  purport :  "  Life  is  full  of 
labour  where  is  no  sky-sent  rain,  but  only  irrigation 
from  a  river  which  will  not  do  its  part  unless  canals 
and  drains  be  cleared  annually  with  infinite  toil  of 
man  and  beast,  and  water  be  raised  by  hand  through 
a  twelve-hour  day."  But  this  labour  is  all  pre- 
arranged and  unvarying. 

"The  Nile,  crawling  year  by  year  over  the  flats, 
now  a  little  higher,  now  a  little  lower,  giving  all  the 
possibility  of  existence  that  there  is,  and  admitting 
of  no  variety  in  the  annual  work  of  preparation  for 
its  coming,  or  of  utilising  what  it  leaves  [on  going, 
makes  life  monotonous  to  a  degree  hard  to  realise 
in  a  zone  of  quick-changing  skies." 

And  what  was  the  result  ?  Mr.  Hogarth's  con- 
clusion is  that  of  Professor  Sayce :  such  a  life  was 
bound  to  affect  mental  and  spiritual  development, 
and  did  affect  it. 

"  Despite  all  his  physical  energy,  the  Nilot  is  bound 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 
not  only  to  lack  enterprise  but  to  direct  all  his 
spiritual,  as  his  physical,  vision  to  earth.  He  takes 
no  thought  of  the  sky,  nor  of  any  God  therein.  The 
cult  of  the  Sun  in  old  Egypt  was  an  exotic  above 
the  Delta  ;  nor  anywhere  does  it  seem  to  have  had 
the  usual  characteristics,  imagery  or  consequences 
of  a  sky-worship.  The  real  gods  were  on  the 
earth  or  under  it,  clothed  with  bestial  or  human 
forms,  worshipped  with  myriad  superstitious  ob- 
servances, but  without  reference  to  religious  or 
social  ideals." 

From  such  passages  as  these  the  reader  will  under- 
stand my  desire  to  link  what  was  said  in  the  last 
chapter,  concerning  the  correspondence  between 
Egyptian  art  and  life  and  the  low  state  of  intellectual 
development  which  that  art  reveals — to  link  this 
with  my  recollections  of  the  country  itself,  and  the 
curious  conditions  of  life  which  have  always  pre- 
vailed in  it.  Through  life  and  art  we  traced  the 
same  unvarying  round,  the  same  mechanical  repe- 
tition of  the  archaic  and  the  childish,  deducing  from 
it  the  people's  lack  of  intellectual  initiative  and 
spiritual  enlightenment.  Here,  in  Nature  and  the 
physical  arrangement  of  the  country,  we  are  struck 
by  the  same  order  of  phenomena,  the  same  iteration 
of  circumstances,  making  of  life  itself  a  lesson  learnt 
by  rote  ;  and  now  we  have  Professor  Sayce  and 
Mr.  Hogarth  inferring  from  these  outward  circum- 
stances just  what  we  inferred  from  Egyptian  art — 
namely,  the  limitation  of  the  Egyptian's  "  spiritual 
and  physical  vision  to  earth,"  and  his  inveterate 
*' incapacity  for  abstract  thought."     The  two  are 

63 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

counterparts  The  narrow  valley  with  its  fixed 
boundaries,  secluded  and  cut  off  from  the  world ; 
the  Nile,  regular  as  a  chronometer,  controlling 
the  life  of  the  valley  with  punctual  ebb  and  flow ; 
that  life  itself  lived  to  order  and  strictly  under  its 
great  taskmaster's  eye,  reiterating  monotonously  the 
same  round  of  simple  tasks — what  are  these  but  a 
set  of  circumstances  in  themselves  archaic  ?  Think 
of  such  a  life  in  terms  of  form,  and  you  evolve  the 
stereotyped  yet  childish  conventions  of  an  Egyptian 
bas-relief.  The  grasp  in  which  Egyptian  art  and 
life  are  held,  is  it  not,  after  all,  the  grasp  of  the 
Nile  ? 

I  cannot  help  turning  aside  here  for  a  moment  to 
remind  the  reader,  by  way  of  corroboration,  of 
another  instance  of  river  influence  corresponding 
in  many  ways  to  that  which  we  have  been  speaking 
of.  The  twin  civilisation  to  the  Egyptian  was  the 
Assyrian,  and  in  several  striking  particulars  the 
resemblance  between  the  two  is  obvious.  The 
influence  of  the  same  kind  of  routine  as  that  which 
dominated  Egyptian  life  is  unmistakably  present  in 
the  Euphrates  valley.  All  that  we  know  of  the  life 
of  that  valley  points  to  the  existence  of  the  same 
conditions,  the  same  inexhaustible  fertility  of  soil, 
and  the  same  unvarying  monotony  of  daily  work 
which  characterised  the  life  of  Egypt.  In  her 
religion  and  art,  those  two  most  eloquent  witnesses 
to  all  that  in  a  race  is  fundamental,  the  primitive 
influence  in  Assyria  remains  indelible.  Whoever  is 
familiar  with  the  obstinate  survival  of  beast-worship 
on  the  Nile,  typified  by  the  jackal  and  vulture- 
headed  gods  of  the  Egyptian  Pantheon,  will  be 
6+ 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 
struck,  though  in  lesser  degree,  by  the  same  survival 
on  the  Euphrates. 

*'  Behind  the  human  figures  of  the  Semitic  gods 
the  primitively  pictorial  character  of  the  cuneiform 
signs  enables  us  to  discern  the  lineaments  of  figures 
that  belong  to  a  wholly  different  sphere  of  religious 
thought.  They  are  the  figures  not  of  men  but  of 
brute  beasts.  The  name  of  En-lil  was  denoted  by  a 
composite  sign  which  represented  the  word  elim,  *  a 
ram ' ;  that  of  Ea  by  the  ideograph  which  stood  for 
darUf  *  the  antelope.'  En-lil,  accordingly,  was  once 
a  ram  ;  Ea,  an  antelope.'* 

It  is  true  the  idea  of  beast-worship  was  relegated 
in  Babylonia  to  the  secondary  order  of  divinities, 
but  it  remained  the  conception  of  the  mass  of  the 
people.  "  Whereas  in  Egypt  it  was  the  gods  them- 
selves who  joined  the  head  of  the  beast  to  the  body 
of  the  man,  in  Babylonia  it  was  only  the  semi- 
divine  spirits  and  monsters  of  the  popular  creed  who 
were  there  partly  bestial  and  partly  human."  I 
italicise  the  two  words  "  popular  creed,"  for  the 
point  I  wish  to  emphasise  is  that  in  the  Euphrates 
valley,  as  in  the  Nile  valley,  though  to  a  less  extent, 
the  archaic  conception  of  religion  retained  its  hold 
upon  the  life  of  the  nation.  This  view  Professor 
Sayce  expressly  endorses. 

'^  The  Semite,  though  he  moulded  the  later  religion 
of  Babylonia,  could  not  transform  it  altogether. 
The  Sumerian  element  in  the  population  was  never 
extirpated,  and  it  is  probable  that  if  we  knew^  more 
of  the  religion  of  the   people  as  opposed  to  the 

E  65 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
official  theology,  we  should  find  that  it  remained 
comparatively  little  affected  by  Semitic  influence." 

An  obstinate  survival  of  the  archaic,  that  is  the 
striking  feature  in  the  religion,  of  the  Euphrates. 
And  the  same  is  true  of  its  art.  That  art,  represented 
by  the  palaces  and  sculptures  of  Assyria,  itself  an 
offshoot  of  the  older  Babylonian  empire  and  soaked 
with  the  Babylonian  influence,  is  indeed  quite 
different  in  form  and  type  from  Egyptian  ;  but  in 
idea  and  limitations  it  is  strikingly  similar.  In 
architecture  structural  forms  are  evolved  without 
regard  to  the  function  they  fulfil ;  in  sculpture  the 
human  figure  is  represented  with  a  cast-iron  con- 
vention which  seems  wholly  oblivious  of  any  notion 
of  progress  or  development.  The  visitor  to  the 
British  Museum  will  be  struck  by  the  identity  in 
these  respects  between  the  art  of  the  Euphrates  and 
the  Nile.  The  figures  of  Assyrian  sculpture,  the 
huge  man-headed,  winged  bulls,  for  example,  so 
characteristic  of  that  art,  remain  always  in  idea  and 
conception  obstinately  archaic.  They  are  entirely 
lacking  in  naturalness,  flexibility,  variety,  life.  The 
body,  limbs  and  head  are  not  so  united,  or  conceived 
in  such  relation  to  each  other,  as  to  form  a  real 
figure.  Intellectually  the  work  is  of  the  childish  or 
primitive  epoch.  Yet,  like  the  Egyptian,  it  is  work 
not  of  a  childish  epoch  through  which  the  nation 
was  passing  but  of  a  childish  epoch  in  which  the 
nation  was  permanently  abiding,  Mark  the  strong, 
firm,  precise  handling  of  those  impossible  legs  and 
feet  and  arms,  the  trenchant  exactitude  of  the  out- 
lines ;  the  tight  curls  of  hair  and  beard,  each  curl  a 
66 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 

little  formula  endlessly  repeated,  primitive  yet  invari- 
able ;  the  eye  and  eyelid,  the  curl  of  the  nostril,  the 
formal  articulation  of  sinew  and  muscle — these  are 
all  indeed  archaic  in  conception,  but  they  are  not 
archaic  in  execution.  They  are  carved  with  that 
strength,  assurance  and  absolute  uniformity  which 
only  centuries  of  constant  repetition  can  engender. 
As  in  Egyptian  art,  so  here  there  is  something 
strange  and  at  variance  with  usual  experience  in 
this  weird  conjunction  of  firm  and  perfect  handling 
with  immature,  stunted  thought.  There  is,  quite 
obviously,  no  hope  of  development  in  an  art  of  this 
nature.  It  will  multiply  replicas  of  itself  without 
end.  It  has  worn  a  groove  in  which  it  will  revolve 
for  ever. 

The  persislcnca  of  the  primitive,  the  childish,  the 
archaic,  that  is  the  main  characteristic  of  the  religion 
and  art  of  the  Euphrates  as  it  is  of  the  religion  and 
art  of  the  Nile.  Such  resemblances — resemblances 
so  striking  and  fundamental — prepare  us  for,  and 
lead  us  to  expect,  a  corresponding  resemblance  in 
the  life-conditions  of  the  two  countries  ;  and  this 
further  resemblance  is,  of  course,  forthcoming. 
Both  these  ancient,  immovable  civilisations  were  the 
gift  of  rivers.  The  waters  of  the  Tigris  and  the 
Euphrates  were  distributed  over  the  Mesopotamian 
valley  by  a  system  of  irrigation  the  most  complete 
and  grandiose  in  scale  ever  perhaps  attempted. 
Travellers  to  this  day  describe  the  remains  of  the 
long  regular  canals  built  at  intervals  across  the 
plain  which  carried  the  main  supplies  of  water  and 
which  were  tapped  by  the  lesser  conduits  which 
nourished  each  farm  and  garden.    With  the  decline 

67 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
of  a  central  governing  power  capable  of  working 
and  maintaining  these  great  engineering  works  the 
whole  system  has  fallen  to  ruin.  Dams,  sluices, 
embankments,  locks,  have  crumbled  and  decayed ; 
canals  have  dried  up  or  burst  their  banks,  and  for 
many  centuries  agriculture  has  declined  until  the 
whole  country  has  been  overlaid  with  desert  sand 
interspersed  with  a  few  stagnant  marshes.  Cities, 
the  richest  of  the  ancient  world,  have  become  so 
totally  obliterated  that  their  very  sites  are  ignored  or 
are  marked  only  by  shapeless  mounds.  Yet  vestiges 
and  historical  records  in  sufficient  quantity  remain 
to  prove  the  almost  unexampled  agricultural  wealth 
of  a  region  identified  with  the  fabled  Garden  of 
Eden,  and  the  possible  revival  of  that  ancient 
fertihty  remains  one  of  the  most  alluring  problems 
presented  to  modern  enterprise  and  science. 

Here,  then,  in  the  Tigris-Euphrates  valley,  we 
have  another  ancient  civilisation  presented  to  our 
notice  comparable  in  all  its  main  aspects  to  the 
civilisation  of  the  Nile ;  comparable  to  it  in  the 
immovable  and  fixedly  archaic  character  of  its 
religion  and  its  art,  and  comparable  to  it,  too,  in 
the  conditions  of  life  out  of  which  the  religion  and 
the  art  grew.  In  both  cases  these  conditions  of 
life  were  based  upon  an  unwonted  and  perennial 
fertility  of  soil,  which  fertility  again  was  not  only 
due  to  but  was  constantly  regulated  and  maintained 
by  the  overflow  of  the  great  rivers  which  ran  through 
the  land.  Thus  in  both  countries  the  note  of 
unvarying  routine  which  distinguished  their  civili- 
sation is  struck  originally  in  their  physical  formation 
and  in  the  mode  of  life  dictated  by  it.  The  Tigris 
68 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 

and    Euphrates    had    the    same    hold  on  life    in 
Mesopotamia  as  the  Nile  had  on  life  in  Egypt. 

I  must  confess  that  I  offer  these  considerations  to 
the  reader  with  a  certain  diffidence.  I  am  aware 
that  the  theory  of  the  "  influence  of  environment/' 
as  it  has  been  called,  is  somewhat  out  of  fashion. 
Time  was  when  it  was  supposed  to  explain  every- 
thing. Now,  as  a  consequence  of  those  exaggerated 
pretensions,  it  is  permitted  to  explain  nothing. 
Such  is  our  method  of  reasoning.  We  take  up  a 
theory — evolution,  environment,  or  what  not — and 
fall  in  love  with  it;  we  cast  on  it  the  onus  of 
"  explaining  "  the  universe  ;  by-and-by  we  discover 
its  inadequacy  for  such  a  task,  and  forthwith  we 
discard  it  altogether  and  take  up  with  a  new  solution 
Were  we  to  admit  the  idea  of  many  contributory 
causes,  of  many  influences,  sometimes  blending  and 
sometimes  conflicting,  yet  all  more  or  less  opera- 
tive, our  advance  in  knowledge  would  possibly  be 
smoother  and  more  consistent.  It  is  easy  to  overdo 
the  environment  theory,  to  make  it  explain  too 
much  and  too  exactly ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
absurd  to  ignore  it  altogether.  Who  can  associate 
for  a  day  with  a  desert-bred  Bedouin  ;  who,  for  the 
matter  of  that,  can  reflect  for  a  moment  on  the 
characters  of  sailors  or  Scotch  Highlanders,  or  on 
the  difference  between  town  and  country-bred 
people,  and  not  perceive  that  this  influence  is 
indeed  a  very  powerful  formative  cause  ?  Naturally^ 
where  the  physical  conditions  are  most  simple, 
strongly  marked,  and  continuous,  there  their  effects 
on  character  will  be  most  apparent.  They  may  not 
originate  racial  characteristics,  but  they  may  in  such 

69 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
cases  control  their  development  or  dictate  their 
limitations.  Granting  them  a  certain  influence,  it 
seems  inevitable  that  conditions  which  call  for 
varied  efforts,  constant  adaptability,  and  an  intel- 
ligent appreciation  of  all  kinds  of  natural  influences, 
will  be  the  conditions  which,  as  they  exercise  the 
faculties  most  variously,  will  most  favour  mental 
development.  If  this  is  so,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
imagine  any  life  less  favourable  to  intellectual  advance 
than  the  life  of  passive  routine  of  the  Nile  valley — a 
life  self-centred,  shut  off  from  the  world,  intensely 
monotonous,  and  from  year  to  year  and  generation 
to  generation  entirely  dominated  and  controlled  by 
the  river's  automatic  action.  Without  wishing  to 
press  the  point  unduly,  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  to 
realise  intimately,  by  an  effort  of  the  imagination 
based  on  knowledge  of  the  country,  the  conditions 
of  life  under  which  the  Egyptians  lived,  is  to 
recognise,  between  those  conditions  and  the  art, 
religion,  literature  and  science  which  ensued, 
points  of  resemblance  which  it  is  impossible  to 
ignore  or  explain  away. 

Along  the  banks  of  the  Nile  stand  at  intervals, 
like  confessionals,  the  great  temples  in  which  Egypt 
has  embodied  its  most  secret  thoughts  and  aspira- 
tions. Let  us  enter  one  for  a  last  moment.  The 
influence  of  the  river  pervades  the  building. 
Throngs  of  ponderous  columns  bulge  upward  out 
of  lotus  calyxes  to  terminate  in  the  heavy  buds  and 
blossoms  of  the  sacred  river  flower.  Again  and 
again  the  same  buds  or  open  blossoms  appear. 
They  are  held  in  the  hands  of  sculptured  figures 
and  nod  over  the  foreheads  of  gods  and  goddesses. 
70 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 
Friezes  are  formed  of  their  stalks  and  heads,  and 
bands  of  ornament  composed  of  lotuses  enrich  the 
walls.  But  most  of  all  it  is  the  groves  of  huge 
shafts,  distended,  ill-proportioned,  outraging  every 
rational  law  of  the  evolution  of  structural  form — 
most  of  all  it  is  these  imposing  representations  of 
the  Nile's  emblem  which  are  responsible  for  the 
character  of  the  whole  interior.  These  huge  obese 
features  may  be  offensive  to  all  our  notions  of 
structural  propriety,  but  they  were  never  invented 
to  express  a  structural  purpose.  They  were  invented 
to  express  the  ruling  sentiment  of  Egypt — adoration 
of  the  Nile.  It  is  difficult  to  convey  to  one  who 
has  not  felt  their  presence  the  influence  of  the  river 
which  exudes  from  these  dense-growing  groves  of 
bulbs — for  they  are  more  bulbs  than  shafts.  All 
the  feeling  we  associate  with  swamps  and  marshes, 
with  sleepy,  lapping  water,  with  the  succulent,  rank 
growth  of  reeds  and  sedges,  inhabits  these  dim 
interiors.  The  influence  which  dominates  Egypt  is, 
in  the  Egyptian  temple,  focusscd  and  concentrated. 
All  other  considerations,  all  the  ideals  pertaining 
to  a  structural  art,  are  discarded  that  the  presence 
and  the  power  of  the  river  may  receive  complete 
embodiment.  We  may  not  approve  the  motive,  but 
we  cannot  deny  the  force  of  its  effect.  The  Greeks, 
in  their  architecture,  eliminated  all  local  influences 
for  the  sake  of  purely  artistic  considerations.  With 
equal  disinterestedness  the  Egyptians  eliminated 
all  artistic  considerations  in  order  that  a  local  in- 
fluence might  exercise  over  their  art  the  dominion 
it  already  exercised  over  their  lives. 
What  might  be  the  limits  of  such  an  influence  ? 

71 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
We  Europeans,  who  boast  our  intellectual  inde- 
pendence, if  we  lived  on  the  bounty  of  a  river  in  a 
river-created  country,  knowing  of  no  resources  but 
what  the  river  brought,  our  hopes  and  fears  centred 
upon  it,  the  habits  of  our  daily  life  regulated 
by  it,  our  traditions  and  literature  and  religion 
saturated  by  the  slow  infiltration  of  ages  with  the 
river's  influence — should  we  have  fared  as  the 
Egyptians  fared?  Should  we  have  accepted  our 
river's  beneficent  tyranny,  and  would  that  tyranny 
have  extended  its  sway  from  our  outward  lives  to 
our  inward  habits  of  thought  ?  Would  the  power 
to  express  rational  purposes  in  artistic  forms  have 
been  denied  us,  and  for  five  thousand  years  should 
we  have  been  content  to  build  our  temple  columns 
in  the  likeness  of  river  bulbs  ?  To  feel  that  it 
might  have  been  so,  and  under  what  compulsion  it 
would  have  become  so,  is  to  get  in  touch,  perhaps, 
with  the  life  of  ancient  Egypt. 

So  strong  is  the  influence  of  Nile  architecture 
that  sometimes  it  has  seemed  to  the  present  writer 
as  if,  during  hours  spent  in  the  dim  colonnades 
of  the  old  temples,  he  had  unconsciously  imbibed 
some  of  the  nature  and  ideas  of  the  ancient 
worshippers  in  these  places.  It  seemed  that  their 
life  had  become  his  life  and  their  thoughts  his 
thoughts  ;  that  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  river  rocked 
his  existence  as  it  had  rocked  theirs,  and  that 
the  rows  of  the  white,  dead  hills  bounded  the  uni- 
verse for  him  as  for  them.  Nothing,  it  seemed, 
could  ever  intrude  here  to  break  the  reigning 
routine  or  disturb  the  unvarying  iteration  of  the 
months. 
72 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NILE 
"To-morrow,  and  to-morrow,  and  to-morrow, 
Creeps  in  this  petty  pace  from  day  to  day 
To  the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time." 

Hard  by,  the  Nile  itself  rolls  its  majestic  flood, 
surveying  its  crops  and  lands  and  people  with  a 
great  landlord's  benignant  pride.  "  I  made  this 
Egypt,"  it  seems  to  murmur  to  itself,  '*  and  I  made 
the  Egyptians.  It  was  I  also  who  built  those 
temples,  and  by-and-by,  when  my  people  live  once 
more  undisturbed  under  my  rule,  I  shall,  perhaps, 
build'  others  like  them.  What  does  it  matter  if 
there  is  a  break  in  the  series  :  after  all,  has  not 
that  often  happened  before  ? " 


73 


CHAPTER  III 
ENTER  THE  GREEK 

The  new  factor  at  work  :  The  movement  in  Greek  archaic  art 
an  intellectual  movement :  The  Greek  point  of  view  :  Intellec- 
tual bias  of  the  Greek  mind  :  In  what  respects  sculpture  is 
calculated  to  express  that  bias  :  The  Greek  instinct  for  defini- 
tion :  Its  restrictions  and  limitations  :  Greek  religion  :  The 
Greek  idea  of  death  :  Gods  and  tombs  :  Greek  poetry  :  Ana- 
logy between  Myron  and  iEschylus,  Phidias  and  Sophocles  : 
What  Greek  art  cannot  give 

VERY  likely  the  practice,  which  has  become  uni- 
versal in  these  specialising  days,  of  treating  art  as  if 
it  could  be  disjoined  from  the  life  out  of  which  it 
grew,  may  have  its  conveniences,  but  it  is  responsible 
none  the  less  for  the  loss  of  much  of  the  interest 
of  the  subject.  We  lose,  by  so  treating  it,  a  part  of 
the  contents  of  art.  Out  of  the  current  criticisms 
of  Florentine,  Venetian,  Sienese,  and  other  schools 
of  Italian  painting,  how  much  do  we  gather  of  the 
inward  intellectual  and  emotional  life  which  found 
these  modes  of  utterance,  and  which,  through  these 
several  yet  converging  currents,  went  to  make  up 
the  Italian  Renaissance  ?  From  the  many  books 
written  by  architects  on  architecture,  treating,  as 
they  do,  that  great  subject  from  the  technical  point 
of  view,  as  a  matter  of  material  and  structural  law, 
what  do  we  divine  of  the  national  spirit  which  in 
the  great  building  eras  moulded  our  cathedrals  and 
abbeys  in  its  own  likeness  ?    Art  has  a  humanand 

74 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 
dramatic  quality.  It  is  the  most  vivid,  the  most 
convincing  and  eloquent  expression  of  the  life  of 
its  own  age  which  the  past  has  handed  down  to  us  ; 
and  more  especially  is  this  true  of  the  great  periods 
of  art,  the  creative  epochs  as  they  may  be  called ; 
for  it  is  the  art  of  such  epochs  which  is  fullest  of 
life,  and  which  has  the  greatest  collective  impulse 
of  conviction  to  back  it.  This,  indeed,  it  is  which 
gives  to  such  epochs  the  aspect  of  agreement  and 
uniformity  which  we  donote  by  the  word  "  style." 
They  have  this  note  of  uniformity,  of  style,  pre- 
cisely because  they  are  supported  in  life  by  a  solid 
body  of  conviction.  When  a  style  reigns,  no  other 
but  that  language  is  possible.  All  men  are  clear  as 
to  what  they  have  to  say.  At  such  epochs  art  sums 
up  and  presents  to  us  in  visible  form  the  spirit  of 
its  age ;  and  to  neglect  this  message  in  order  to 
emphasise  the  merely  aesthetic  importance  of  the 
subject  is,  it  seems  to  me,  deliberately  to  jettison 
the  best  part  of  its  cargo. 

An  example  of  this  apparent  waste  I  have  in  view. 
There  has  recently  appeared  a  thoughtful  and 
scholarly  work  on  Greek  sculpture  by  Professor 
Ernest  Gardner.  It  bears  the  title  "Six  Greek 
Sculptors,"  and  the  bulk  of  it  consists  of  an  inte- 
resting analysis  of  the  six  most  famous  of  the 
Greek  sculptors,  from  Myron  to  Lysippus.  The 
first  and  last  chapters,  however,  are  concerned  with 
the  rise  and  decline  of  the  art — that  is,  with  its 
Archaic  and  Hellenistic  periods — and  it  is  these 
two  chapters  which  best  illustrate  the  point  I  wish 
to  examine. 

The  subject  of  the  first  chapter  is  the  gradual 

75 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
transition  from  the  old  stereotyped  and  unnatural 
figures  of  Egyptian  sculpture  to  the  warm  and 
living  forms  of  Greek  art.  The  progress  of  this 
transition  is  at  first  by  little  steps.  The  antique 
figures  are,  to  begin  with,  imitated  in  all  their  con- 
ventional stiffness.  Yet  even  in  these  earliest 
adaptations  a  careful  scrutiny  will  detect  signs  of 
dissatisfaction  with  the  old  style  and  of  a  hesitating 
and  tentative  advance  in  the  direction  of  the  new. 
They  contain  a  promise,  and  *'  if  we  try  to  analyse 
more  closely  wherein  exactly  this  promise  lies,  we 
shall  find  that  almost  every  archaic  statue  in  Greece 
bears  a  trace  in  some  part  or  other  of  direct  study 
and  observation  of  Nature."  It  is  in  this  sentence, 
perhaps,  that  Professor  Gardner  comes  closest  to 
explaining  the  change  of  outlook  which  inaugurated 
the  change  of  style  in  art.  But  he  does  not  press 
the  point.  A  few  words  are  added.  It  is  pointed 
out  that  an  indication  of  this  love  of  direct  personal 
investigation  may  be  found  in  ever  so  slight  reve- 
lations, "  in  the  treatment  of  hand  or  knee-joints  or 
toes,  or  in  the  fold  of  skin  at  the  elbow ;  but  it 
is  rarely,  if  ever,  absent ;  and  it  shows  that  the 
artist,  while  content  to  repeat  the  conventional 
type,  tried  to  make  it  his  own,  to  give  it  some 
individual  stamp,  by  adding  to  it  something,  how- 
ever insignificant,  of  his  own  direct  observation." 

It  would  seem  as  if,  in  that  repeated  phrase, 
"direct  observation,"  Professor  Gardner  had 
touched  the  inward  intellectual  incentive  that  was 
pushing  the  sculptor  forward  on  the  path  of  pro- 
gress, and  we  expect  that  he  will  proceed  to  explain 
the  nature  of  that  motive  and  link  it  to  its  effect  on 

76 


'•.',' 


Besides  detail  of  modelltfig  notice  the  inward  and 
suppressed  vitality  of  the  whole  figure^  soon  to  find 
complete  expression 

APOLLO.     ARCHAIC  GREEK  p.  76 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 

art.  This,  however,  he  does  not  do.  The  purely 
artistic  side  of  the  question,  the  degrees  by  which 
sculpture  advances  from  mechanism  to  Hfe,  are 
treated  with  due  knowledge  and  lucidity ;  but  the 
corresponding  mental  change  and  process  of 
development  out  of  which  the  artistic  movement 
proceeded  and  of  which  it  was  the  measure  and  the 
inevitable  result,  are  practically  ignored.  The 
consequence  is  that  the  subject  of  sculpture  itself 
is  left,  so  to  speak,  hanging  in  the  air,  and,  not 
being  related  to  life,  is  not  really  explained  at  all. 
Let  us  endeavour,  if  we  can,  to  gain  a  rough  idea 
of  the  kind  of  interest  which  is  thus  lost  sight  of. 

What  is  the  difference  on  the  intellectual  side 
between  the  civilisations  of  Egypt  and  Greece  ? 
The  Egyptian  civilisation,  as  has  been  already 
pointed  out,  was  an  affair  of  routine.  Its  pro- 
ficiency was  the  proficiency  not  of  thought  but 
practice.  All  that  practice,  all  that  endless  repeti- 
tion, perpetuated  under  unvarying  conditions  of 
life,  and  itself  reflecting  the  deadly  monotony  of 
those  conditions,  could  achieve,  Egypt  achieved. 
But,  as  all  records  and  vestiges  conspire  to  prove, 
she  laboured  from  the  beginning  under  an  unshak- 
able apathy  as  regards  intellectual  curiosity  and 
initiative.  Five  thousand  years  pass  in  Egypt  like 
a  watch  in  the  night.  The  childish  usages  and 
childish  thoughts  which  greet  us  as  the  curtain 
rises  hold  the  stage  still  as  it  falls.  Routine  has 
reached  here,  you  would  say,  its  final  phase  of 
absolute  petrifaction.  There  is  nowhere  a  trace 
of  that  movement,  that  development,  that  growth 
which  we  associate  with  the  inward  activity  of  the 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
mind.    It  would  seem  that,  under  its  load  of  pre- 
cedent, intellectual  initiative  had  ceased  to  operate 
and  had  sunk  into  a  state  of  mental  inertia. 

And  in  all  these  traits  the  art  of  the  country  was 
but  a  replica  of  the  life  it  emanated  from.  Could 
anything  be  more  entirely  childlike  and  primitive 
than  those  conventional  figures  which  decorate  the 
walls  of  the  Nile  temples,  drawn  just  as  children 
draw,  with  face  in  profile,  shoulders  to  the  front, 
and  feet  in  profile  once  more  ?  Doubtless  in  exe- 
cution they  are  perfectly  skilful ;  a  lesson  learnt  by 
rote  and  repeated  for  fifty  centuries  is  apt  to  be 
well  learnt.  But  if  the  hand  is  forward,  how  back- 
ward is  the  brain !  An  Egyptian  sculptor,  as  we 
surmise,  could  almost  have  carved  one  of  his 
stereotyped  forms  in  his  sleep,  so  uninformed  by 
any  trait  gathered  from  direct  observation  are  they, 
so  utterly  mindless,  so  purely  a  matter  of  mere 
mechanical  iteration.  It  would  be  difficult  to  con- 
ceive a  more  significant  summary  of  a  civilisation, 
curiously  lacking  in  all  its  aspects  in  intellectual 
vitality,  than  these  pathetically  inanimate  figures, 
repeated  with  parrot-like  monotony  through  suc- 
cessive dynasties.  Here  is  an  art  which  is  a  faithful 
facsimile  indeed  of  the  life  it  was  begotten  of. 
Here  is  the  load  of  precedent  with  a  vengeance, 
and  here  the  mental  inertia. 

We  pass  on  into  the  Greek  epoch,  and  no  sooner 
do  we  enter  it  than  we  are  aware  of  a  subtle,  signi- 
ficant change.  The  sculpture  begins  to  move,  to 
strive  as  with  fetters.  Backed  by  the  authority 
of  immemorial  usage,  the  Egyptian  conventions 
impose  themselves  on  the  budding  art  of  Greece. 

78 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 

But  from  the  first  their  authority  is  questioned. 
Unwillingly,  with  a  profound  reluctance  and  dis- 
content, the  Greek  repeats  the  old  impossible 
features  and  attitudes.  "  It  is  not  so,  it  is  not  so," 
he  mutters  to  himself,  and  by-and-by  he  essays  his 
keener  perception  on  some  minor  point,  and  a 
hand,  a  foot,  a  knee-joint,  is  carved  with  some 
attempt  at  natural  representation.  Thus,  under  the 
stimulus,  as  Professor  Gardner  tells  us,  *'  of  direct 
study  and  observation  of  Nature,"  sculpture  in 
Greek  hands  develops  flexibility  and  expressiveness. 
But  what  does  this  direct  study  and  observation 
imply  ?  Are  we  to  suppose  that  it  is  a  purely 
artistic  process,  that  it  begins  and  ends  in  art,  or  is 
it  rather  itself  of  mental  origin,  arguing  a  changed 
attitude  of  mind,  an  impulse  of  curiosity  and  a 
desire  to  realise  the  truth  about  things  such  as  had 
never  quickened  Egyptian  thought?  Will  the 
reader  place  himself  in  the  position  of  one  who, 
having  been  long  accustomed  to  make  a  certain 
conventional  and  oft-repeated  diagram  do  duty  for 
the  human  figure,  suddenly  awakens  to  the  per- 
ception that  the  diagram  bears  in  fact  no  real 
resemblance  to  a  figure.  What  is  the  nature  of 
that  sudden  awakening  ?  It  is  not  optical.  The 
sense  of  sight  conveys  the  image  of  the  diagram 
to  the  brain,  and  it  is  there,  in  the  brain,  that  the 
conception  of  its  inadequacy  and  unlikeness  to  the 
original  takes  place,  as  also  it  is  from  there  that  the 
succeeding  efforts  and  experiments  in  the  direction 
of  real  resemblance  emanate. 

In  short,  the  awakening  which  we  see  in  Greek 
archaic  art  is  the  reflection  of  a  mental  awakening. 

79 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
Any  one  who  has  learnt  to  think  of  art  as  the 
expression  of  hfe,  looking  at  this  art  of  the  Greeks 
alone,  and  noting  its  striving  after  truthful  represen- 
tation and  its  determination  from  the  beginning  to 
see  and  depict  things  as  they  are,  will  know  that  he 
is  in  the  presence  of  a  transition  not  less  important 
intellectually  than  artistically.  Through  the  long 
Egyptian  night  intellect,  the  faculty  which  reasons, 
compares,  analyses  and  defines,  has  slept.  Now  it 
wakens.  I  say  that  an  intelligent  critic,  surveying 
the  progress  of  art  only,  and  thinking  of  art  only, 
would  lay  his  finger  on  the  quick-coming  realism  of 
early  Greek  art,  and  observe  that  we  had  here 
marks  of  a  sudden  intellectual  vitahty  such  as 
history  until  then  exhibits  no  trace  of. 

And  he  would  have  been  right.  The  coming  to 
life  of  the  old  archaic  forms  of  sculpture  was  but 
one  sign  among  many  of  a  revolution  in  thought 
which  has  profoundly  affected  the  character  of  all 
subsequent  civilisation.  The  movement  in  art 
synchronises  with  a  corresponding  movement  in 
literature,  in  science,  in  politics,  in  philosophy. 
Professor  Gardner's  half-dozen  sculptors  cover  the 
wonderful  two  centuries  in  which  the  Greek  intellect 
blossomed,  fruited,  faded.  But,  though  one  sign 
among  many  only,  Greek  sculpture  is  perhaps  the 
most  thoroughly  characteristic  and  adequate  present- 
ment of  the  new  movement  of  the  mind  which 
exists.  It  is  so  because  between  the  nature  of  the 
art  of  sculpture  and  the  nature  of  the  intellectualism 
it  grew  out  of,  there  is  a  profound  affinity. 

It  is  usually  the  case  that  when  the  mind  takes  a 
certain  ply,  when  it  opens  up  a  new  line  of  inquiry 
80 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 

or  fruitful  speculation,  and  devotes  itself,  as  it 
generally  does,  to  the  new  research  with  an  ardour 
which  seems  commensurate  with  the  stores  of  ore 
latent  in  the  hitherto  unexplored  reef — it  is  usually 
the  case  that  this  very  ardour,  though  productive  of 
great  results,  yet  being  directed  to  one  end  and 
exercising  but  one  side  of  the  mind,  has  the  effect 
of  leaving  another  side  and  other  faculties  unused 
and  undeveloped.  Intellect's  awakening  had  this 
effect  upon  Greek  culture.  Fascinated  by  the  novel 
experience  of  thinking,  Greek  culture,  despite  its 
versatility,  came  to  be  dominated  by  an  intellectual 
order  of  ideas  and  precepts.  The  Greek  versatility 
was  essentially  an  intellectual  versatility.  Moreover, 
following  its  chief  activity,  the  Greek  mind  developed 
within  strictly  intellectual  limitations.  The  most 
striking  consequences  of  this  intellectual  bias  and 
the  limitations  it  imposed  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Greek  love  of  the  definite  and  in  the  Greek  passion 
for  definition.  All  that  is  clear-cut  and  articulate 
the  Greek  mind  adores ;  all  that  is  in  the  least  vague 
and  indeterminate  it  detests.  It  could  not  but  be  so. 
The  operations  of  intellect  being  confined  to  the 
sphere  of  the  natural  and  the  intelligible,  it  can  only 
act  where  facts  of  a  finite  nature  give  it  foothold. 
Accordingly  the  tendency  of  an  exclusive  cultivation 
of  the  intellectual  faculty  will  be  to  restrict  human 
ideas  within  the  bounds  of  the  intelligible  and  the 
definable. 

Most  emphatically  was  this  the  case  with  the 
Greeks.  They,  for  the  first  time,  exploited  the  idea 
of  intellectual  definition,  and  it  soon  followed  that 
they  would  admit  no  thought  which   would  not 

F  8i 


THE  WORKS  OF  MMsr 
submit  itself  to  definition.  Now  there  is  a  whole 
order  of  ideas  which,  spiritual  in  their  nature, 
refuse  to  submit  themselves  to  definition,  but  with 
these  ideas,  even,  the  Greeks  so  dealt  as  to  bring  them 
within  range,  as  it  were,  of  their  favourite  faculty. 

In  considering  these  matters,  what  is  significant 
is  not  a  people's  use  and  common  knowledge  of 
such  phrases  as  "  the  divine,"  "  the  supernatural," 
'^  the  godlike  "  and  so  on,  nor  even  its  faith  in  such 
existences,  but  its  interpretation  of  them  and  the 
meaning  it  assigns  to  them.     A  people  may  possess 
the  liveliest  faith  in  its  divinity  or  divinities,  and  yet 
its  conception  of  divinity  may  have  in  it  little  of  a 
divine  or  spiritual  nature.     For  as  it  is  possible  to 
lift  all  material  phenomena  into  the  spiritual  sphere, 
so  is  it  possible   to   lower  spiritual   ideas  to  the 
material  sphere.      Between  the  material  and  the 
spiritual  there  is  no  fixed  gulf.     The  mind  that  lays 
itself  open  to  spiritual  promptings  and  inspirations 
will  find  all  its  observations  of  Nature  and  its  earthly 
surroundings  quite  altered  and  transformed.     It  will 
find  that  Nature  herself  becomes  endued  with  an 
infinite  significance,  and  that,  as  part  and  parcel  of 
that  infinitude,  she  herself  becomes  shrouded  in  a 
kind  of  mystery,  and  the  thoughts  and  feelings  she 
suggests  do  not  admit  of  articulation  and  refuse  to 
be  exactly  defined.    Thus  is  it  when  the  spiritual 
sense    is    developed ;     its   meaning,   and  with   its 
meaning  its  mystery  and  vagueness,  encroach  upon 
the  territory  of  intellect,  and  forthwith,  before  its 
melting    touch,   things    begin   to   lose  their  finite 
exactitude  and  precision  of  form.      This  happens 
when  the  spirit  invades  the  dominions  of  intellect. 
82 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 
But  something  quite  different  happens  when,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Greeks,  intellect  invades  the  spiritual 
domain.  It  is  not  then  the  finite  which  becomes 
infinite,  but  the  infinite  which  becomes  finite. 
Spiritual  conceptions  are  treated  intellectually. 
They  lose  much  of  their  indefinable  nature,  and 
become  endowed  with  intelligible  attributes  and 
distinct  forms.  The  thoughts  of  a  people  on 
matters  of  faith  and  religion  are  always  its  most 
characteristic  thoughts,  and  nothing  gives  one  a 
stronger  perception  of  the  humane  and  rootedly 
intellectual  cast  of  the  Greek  mind  than  its  notions 
of  divinity.  The  Greek  gods  are  mortals  because 
no  thought  is  entertained  of  them  which  transcends 
clear  expression.  Up  to  the  human  limits,  up  to 
the  measure  of  human  understanding,  they  are 
realised  and  represented ;  but  no  attempt  is  ever 
made  to  follow  them  into  the  spiritual  sphere  and, 
by  the  soul's  act  of  contemplation,  see  them  as  they 
are.  Such  aspirations  were  irrational.  In  short, 
the  anthropomorphic  instinct  of  the  Greek  mind 
was  the  natural  result  of  its  intellectual  bias. 

But  what  was,  and  what  was  bound  to  be,  the 
effect  upon  art  of  this  mental  bias  ?  All  races  turn 
to  the  art  which  best  expresses  their  own  character. 
A  people  in  love  with  definition,  and  who  are  sworn 
to  entertain  only  such  ideas  or  aspects  of  ideas  as 
admit  of  definition,  will  turn  to  the  art  which  can 
best  and  most  vigorously  define.  But  without  doubt 
that  art  is  sculpture.  Sculpture  is  definition.  The 
sculptor  undertakes  to  express  his  ideas  in  a  hard 
material,  in  curt,  distinct  lines,  in  concrete  and 
exactly  articulated    forms.      In    other    words,  he 

83 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

undertakes  to  define  his  ideas.  The  Greeks,  who 
wanted  all  things  defined  and  had  no  use  for  any- 
thing beyond  its  definable  stage,  threw  themselves 
with  a  sort  of  avidity  on  the  art  of  sculpture  and 
made  it  peculiarly  their  own.  It  filled  a  quite 
different  place  in  their  lives  to  such  arts  as,  from  time 
to  time,  are  practised  by,  and  more  or  less  restricted 
to,  a  select  group  of  men  of  genius.  It  is  clear  that, 
for  generations  before  the  art  attained  to  any  pitch 
of  excellence,  it  was  used  among  the  Greeks  popularly 
as  a  kind  of  rough  native  dialect.  The  multitude  of 
votive  offerings  which  filled  the  local  shrines  of 
Greece,  Cyprus  or  Rhodes,  and  for  the  most  part 
took  the  form  of  statues  and  statuettes,  in  which, 
rude  as  they  are,  Professor  Gardner  already  remarks 
the  characteristic  Greek  tendency  towards  anthro- 
pomorphism, attest  by  their  numbers  the  popularity 
of  the  art  in  its  primitive  stage  of  development. 
In  the  same  way  the  apparently  universal  custom  of 
carving  scenes  in  memory  of  dead  friends  and 
relatives  and  setting  them  up  by  the  wayside  of  the 
old  "Streets  of  Tombs,"  where  they  still  serve  in 
some  cases  the  purpose  of  national  galleries  of 
sculpture,  prove  how  perfectly  the  art  had  assimi- 
lated itself  to  the  national  temperament.  Sculpture 
from  the  first,  in  short,  was  a  Greek  vernacular,  and 
as  such  it  was  instinctively  understood.  In  the 
tomb  scenes,  for  example,  the  limitations  natural  to 
the  art  are  instinctively  respected.  Dealing  as  they 
do  with  the  awful  mystery  of  death,  they  contrive  to 
make  no  mystery  of  it  at  all,  for  they  treat  only  so 
much  of  the  subject  as  is  intelligible  and  can  be  put 
into  exact  form.    A  steady,  farewell  look,  a  woman 

84 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 

veiling  herself,  the  lingering  handshake  of  one  who 
starts  on  a  long  journey — such  are  the  moments,  such 
the  aspects  of  the  subject  chosen.  Separation,  loneli- 
ness, sorrow,  resignation,  fortitude,  are  the  sugges- 
tions, mortal  in  kind,  rather  than  any  immortal 
suggestions  of  spiritual  hope  and  a  life  beyond  the 
horizon-line  of  this,  which  the  idea  of  death 
awakened  in  the  Greek  mind.  They  were  finely 
and  adequately  treated,  in  the  noblest  spirit  of 
reason.  There  is  no  weakness  or  despair,  or  vain 
complaint,  in  these  farewells ;  nothing  but  dignity 
and  a  grave  composure.  But  if  human  weakness  is 
absent,  so,  too,  is  spiritual  confidence.  All  that  side 
of  the  subject  is  rigorously  shut  off.  "  Stick  to  what 
you  know,  stick  to  what  reason  and  intellect  vouch 
for  "  ;  such  seem  the  instructions  under  which  all 
these  artists  work.  **That  we  must  part,  that 
separation  is  bitter,  that  it  is  to  be  borne  with 
fortitude— this  reason  and  intellect  affirm,  and  this 
only;  thus  much  therefore  carve,  but  carve  no 
more." 

What  I  wish  to  point  out  to  the  reader  is  the 
very  strong  resemblance  which  exists  between 
Greek  ways  of  thinking  and  feeling  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  art  of  sculpture  itself  on  the  other. 
It  will  be  evident  to  any  one  who  endeavours  to 
represent  a  group  or  figure  in  terms  of  sculpture — 
that  is  to  say,  in  terms  of  form — that  the  first 
indispensable  preliminary  is  that  the  mind's  con- 
ception of  what  it  wishes  to  produce  should  be 
perfectly  definite  and  distinct.  This  is  not  the  case 
with  painting,  which  can  deal  as  much  as  it  pleases 
in  the  mystery  of  light  and  shade   and   in   vague 

8s 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
emotional  suggestion  ;  nor  is  it  the  case,  of  course, 
with  poetry.  But  in  the  case  of  sculpture,  though 
sculpture  can  convey  thoughts  of  the  greatest 
subtlety,  yet  the  condition  is  always  present  that 
such  thoughts  must  submit  to  exactitude  of  defini- 
tion. He  who  wishes  to  present  a  subject  in  the 
precisely  articulated  terms  of  chiselled  marble  must 
carry  in  his  mind  an  image  of  corresponding  pre- 
cision. But  these  images  of  precision  were,  as  I 
have  endeavoured  to  point  out,  the  very  order  of 
ideas  which  the  Greeks  affected.  Their  strong 
rational  bias  led  them  to  accept  nothing  beyond 
the  stage  at  which  it  could  give  a  clear  account 
of  itself — beyond  the  stage,  that  is  to  say,  in  which 
the  art  of  sculpture  could  deal  with  it.  In  other 
words,  the  Greek  mind,  intellectually  disposed  as  it 
always  was,  was  constantly  and  instinctively  at  work 
preparing  subjects  for  the  sculptor  and  preventing 
those  subjects  from  getting  beyond  his  control. 
I  have  spoken  of  Greek  religious  ideas  and  of  the 
tendency  in  the  Greek  world  to  reduce  all  such 
ideas  to  finite,  comprehensible  terms.  But  is  it  not 
evident  that  in  thus  bringing  divine  ideas  within 
range  of  definition  the  Greeks  were  also  bringing 
them  within  the  range  of  sculpture  ?  The  Greek 
gods  and  goddesses,  if  creatures  so  mortal  can  bear 
the  name,  wrought  by  Greek  chisels  in  firm  marble 
contours,  calm  and  self-possessed,  unvexed  by  any 
tumult  of  soul,  unperplexed  by  any  effort  of  the 
artist  to  reach  up  to  more  than  he  could  express — 
to  what  do  they  owe  their  perfection  as  examples  of 
sculpture  ?  They  owe  it  to  the  fact  that  the  whole 
process  of  Greek  thought  had  prepared  them  for 
86 


The  lady  is  represented  exactly  as  she  was  iti  life. 
Death  plays  no  part  in  the  thing.  Compare  ivith 
the  Gothic  tomb  (/>.  89) 

THE  TOMB  OF  HEGESO 


p.%j 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 
sculpture's  handling.  The  conception  which  the 
Greek  mind  had  formed  of  divinity  was  itself  a 
sculptor's  conception.  In  discarding  the  mysterious 
and  obscure  and  concentrating  itself  on  the  com- 
prehensible and  the  definable,  it  was  evolving  a 
mental  image  which  could  pass  without  change  into 
terms  of  sculpture.  To  His  chosen  people  God  was 
a  voice  that  spoke  in  thunder  and  lightning  out  of 
the  clouds  that  shrouded  Sinai.  To  the  Greek 
imagination  He  was  in  His  various  manifestations 
only  a  little  more  than  humanly  perfect.  You 
might  put  the  first  conception  into  rolling  Biblical 
verse  such  as  the  Jews  were  masters  of,  but  it  would 
scarcely  go  into  sculpture ;  nor  have  I  ever  heard 
that  the  Jews  could  carve.  But  the  second  con- 
ception, the  Greek  conception,  would  not  only  go 
into  sculpture,  but  in  a  sense  is  sculpture  ready 
made. 

And  so,  too,  of  what  I  was  just  now  speaking  of, 
the  Greek  ideas  of  death,  that  crowning  mystery  of 
the  human  lot,  which  has  exercised  the  imagination 
of  every  race  that  has  ever  been,  and  has  given 
birth  to  so  many  strange  and  monstrous  and  beau- 
tiful myths  and  fables  and  divinations,  to  so  many 
mystical  speculations  and  gropings  in  the  void,  is 
it  not  obvious  that  the  bias  of  the  Greek  mind, 
which  led  it  to  approach  the  subject  from  the 
mundane  standpoint,  to  fix  its  attention  on  its  in- 
telligible aspect,  and  to  ignore  or  keep  in  the  back- 
ground its  unfathomable  mystery,  was  a  bias  which 
favoured  the  art  of  sculpture  and  tended  to  supply 
sculpture  with  appropriate  subject-matter  ?  Who 
can  look  on  the  Greek  memorial  tablets  and  doubt 

87 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

it  ?  The  motives,  the  sentimeiUs,  which  inspire 
these  gravely  pathetic  figures  are  invariably  of  an 
entirely  human  and  intelligible  order,  and,  being 
human  and  intelligible,  they  are  definable,  and  it  is 
because  they  are  essentially  definable  that  the  art 
of  sculpture  advances,  as  it  were,  to  meet  and 
readily  expresses  and  embodies  them. 

The  truth  is  that  a  race  distinctively  intellectual 
cannot  but  express  itself  through  the  formative  arts. 
Intellect  is  the  faculty  which  is  most  purely  human, 
for  it  is  as  distinctly  superior  and  of  a  higher  order 
to  animal  intelligence  as  it  is  inferior  and  of  a  lower 
order  to  all  that  we  can  conceive  of  spiritual  in- 
telligence. Now,  if  we  watch  intellect  at  work, 
if  we  observe  in  what  manner  it  arranges  and 
investigates  whatever  matter  it  has  to  deal  with, 
separating  like  from  unlike  and  disposing  its 
material  in  distinct  masses  or  groups,  we  shall 
perceive  that  its  whole  activity  depends  upon  its 
capacity  for  definition.  Intellect  cannot  get  to 
work,  cannot  handle  and  use  its  material  without 
identifying  and  defining  its  constituent  elements. 
Intellectual  appreciation  is  a  process  of  continued 
definition,  each  step  forward,  each  addition  of 
knowledge,  being  marked  by  the  eradication  of 
irrelevant  matter  and  the  identification  of  the  true 
organism  and  proportions  of  the  subject  under 
consideration  ;  each  step  forward,  that  is  to  say, 
being  an  approach  towards  a  more  complete  defini- 
tion of  the  subject  as  it  really  is.  The  Greeks,  the. 
first  intellectualists  and  almost  the  discoverers,  as 
we  may  say,  of  that  faculty  in  human  nature,  were 
the  people  who  first  set  about  the  task  of  identifying 
88 


The  Christian  idea  uj  Duilh.  Compare  with  the  classic.  The  one 
looking  at  Death  firmly  and  thoughtfully.  The  other ^  equally  firmly 
and  thoughtfully^  refusing  to  look  at  it  at  all 

A  GOTHIC  TOMB 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 

and  defining  with  a  conscious  ardour.  Their  whole 
bias  and  mental  endeavour  was  towards  definition. 
In  all  they  did,  in  all  they  wrought,  in  all  they  said,  this 
tendency  shows  itself,  but  it  shows  itself,  of  course, 
most  easily  and  unrestrainedly  in  the  directions  most 
favourable  to  its  exercise.  The  art  of  sculpture  is  so 
analagous  to  the  action  of  intellect  that  it  describes 
itself  in  the  very  same  terms.  Sculpture,  too,  is  "  a 
process  of  continual  definition,"  and  each  step  forward 
in  sculpture  is  **  marked  by  the  eradication  of  irrele- 
vant matter  and  the  identification  of  the  organism 
and  proportions  of  its  subject."  The  sculptor  cutting 
his  figure  free  of  the  surrounding  marble  is  the 
very  counterpart  of  the  intellectualist  developing 
the  construction  of  his  argument.  It  is,  therefore, 
no  wonder  that  the  Greek  genius  should  have  found 
itself  in  sculpture  and  should  have  spoken  that 
language  with  a  kind  of  native  ease  and  fluency. 

But  for  us,  watching  its  development  in  Greek 
hands,  does  it  not  add  immensely  to  the  interest 
and  significance  of  the  art  to  realise  of  what  inward 
growth  it  was  the  visible  symptom  ?  What  is 
happening  as  the  old  lifeless  dummy  figures  of 
Egyptian  art  stir  and  stretch  themselves  and  put  on 
reality  and  move  with  animation  and  life  ?  What 
is  it  we  are  watching  ?  We  are  watching  the 
awakening  of  the  Greek  mind.  In  those  first  tenta- 
tive experiments  that  Professor  Gardner  speaks  of 
in  the  anxiety  accurately  to  define  a  hand,  a  knee- 
joint,  a  toe,  we  catch  the  first  lisping  of  accents 
which  since  then  have  become  the  native  language 
of  the  West.  Here  you  may  at  leisure  examine, 
here  you   may  touch  with   your  finger,  intellect's 

89 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
earliest  experiments,  its  baby  pothooks  and  hangers. 
It  cannot  be  without  a  thrill  that  we,  who  have 
lived  so  long  under  intellect's  guidance  and  control, 
regard  these  first  signs  of  its  awakening.  A  few 
days  ago  I  was  reading  in  Dr.  Sven  Hedin's  recent 
book  an  account  of  his  discovery  of  the  sources  of 
the  Indus  among  the  mountain  fastnesses  of  the 
Himalayas.  Following  up  the  tiny  brook,  that  yet 
bore  the  name  of  Indus,  the  explorer  came  at  last  to 
where  the  first  drops  trickled  one  by  one  from  a 
well  in  the  hill-side.  "  Here  I  stood,"  he  exclaims, 
"and  saw  the  Indus  emerge  from  the  lap  of  the 
earth.  Here  I  stood  and  saw  this  unpretentious 
brook  wind  down  the  valley,  and  I  thought  of  the 
changes  it  must  undergo  before  it  passes  between 
rocky  cliffs,  singing  its  roaring  song  in  ever  more 
powerful  crescendo,  down  to  the  sea  at  Karachi 
where  steamers  load  and  unload."  So  when  we 
watch  the  first  feeble  trickle  of  the  intellectual 
current  and  think  of  the  lordly  stream  it  will  grow 
into,  and  of  the  many  plains  and  valleys  its  waters 
will  one  day  fertilise — are  not  its  first  drops  freighted 
already  with  the  interest  of  the  future  that  lies 
before  them  ? 

Every  aspect  of  Greek  life  and  every  activity 
arising  out  of  that  life,  testifying  as  they  needs 
must  to  the  clear-cut,  cameo-like  quality  of  Greek 
thought,  illustrate  the  affinity  between  the  Greek 
civilisation  and  the  art  of  sculpture.  Out  of  this 
mass  of  material  let  me  choose  a  single  parallel. 
Literature,  as  a  vehicle  for  the  expression  of  life,  is 
art's  twin.  Let  us  compare  for  a  moment  the  move- 
ment set  on  foot  by  Myron  and  continued  by 
90 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 

Phidias  with  the  movement  set  on  foot  by  iEschylus 
and  continued  by  Sophocles.  For  the  old  hard- 
and-fast  convention  of  the  single  actor  and  the 
chorus  iEschylus  substituted  a  plurality  of  actors 
and  the  dialogue.  The  almost  immediate  effect  of 
the  change  was  to  infuse  into  drama  a  strong 
human  interest — to  make  it  a  medium  for  the 
delineation  of  character — in  a  word,  to  make  it  live. 
The  reader  need  not  be  reminded  to  what  extent 
Sophocles  developed  the  same  idea,  or  how,  out  of 
it,  he  wrought  the  great  typical  heroic  characters 
which  dominate  Greek  tragedy.  The  thought  of 
-^schylus  was  to  break  with  the  old  convention  of 
chorus  and  single  actor  by  which  the  primitive 
Greek  drama  had  been  completely  dominated ;  or 
perhaps  we  should  rather  say  his  thought  was  to 
extricate  the  human  element  in  the  drama,  which 
had  hitherto  been  entirely  eclipsed,  and  give  it 
scope  for  development,  and  that  the  result  of  this 
development  was  more  and  more  to  thrust  the 
conventional  element,  represented  by  the  chorus, 
into  the  background,  ^schylus  was  thinking,  no 
doubt,  more  of  the  living  human  qualities  he  wished 
to  depict  than  of  the  dead  conventions  his  action 
was  dissipating,  just  as  the  early  sculptors  thought 
more  of  the  realities  of  the  human  form  which  they 
were  striving  to  represent  than  of  the  stereotyped 
features  and  attitudes  whose  sleep  of  ages  they 
were  disturbing. 

In  any  case,  so  exactly  do  the  two  processes 
correspond  with  each  other  that  literature  and  art 
at  this  moment  seem  inspired  by  a  single  endeavour, 
^schylus  and  Myron  are  contemporaries,  the  latter 

91 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
some  years  the  younger.  They  are  facing  the  same 
problem  and  solving  it  in  the  same  way.  Both  are 
rescuing  their  subjects  from  an  old,  impossible 
routine,  and  infusing  into  them  a  hitherto  undreamt- 
of vitality ;  and  both  are  effecting  this  by  concen- 
trating their  attention  upon  life  itself  and  turning 
their  art  into  a  means  for  the  direct  representation 
of  life.  There  have  been,  no  doubt,  preceding  and 
earHer  experiments.  Flickerings  of  half-conscious- 
ness have  come  and  gone,  and,  could  we  study 
both  subjects  with  sufficient  minuteness,  we  might 
probably  discover  in  the  primitive  Greek  drama 
touches  of  life  about  equivalent  to  similar  realistic 
touches  in  contemporary  sculpture.  But  though 
both  have  had  their  heralds,  to  these  two  for  the 
first  time  has  come  the  thought,  full-orbed,  that 
poetry  and  art  are  not  to  be  controlled  by  any 
convention,  however  time-honoured,  but  must  be 
inspired  by  what  Professor  Gardner  calls  "the 
direct  study  and  observation  of  Nature." 

In  some  ways  still  more  remarkable  is  the  analogy 
between  Phidias  and  Sophocles,  the  representatives 
of  the  Attic  culmination.  Born  within  a  year  or 
two  of  each  other,  the  work  of  each  balances  that 
of  the  other.  The  resemblance  consists  not  so 
much  in  the  fact  that  both  are  inspired  by  the  same 
lofty  ideals  and  the  same  flush  of  national  self- 
consciousness,  as  in  the  fact  that  both  are  in  that 
phase  of  achievement  when  the  means  of  expression 
have  attained  to  the  portrayal  of  what  is  monu- 
mental and  typical  while  lacking  still  that  dangerous 
fluency  which  is  so  apt  to  resort  to  the  delicate  and 
the    complex  for  the   exhibition    of    its   dexterity. 

92 


•       »    >    a» 


•  o    »»».*.»»,    9,     e 


•.,»     »  • 


3     1         *  } 


t  I 
i.g 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 

Accordingly  we  find  in  the  figures  and  characters  of' 
both  a  striking  and  wonderful  similarity.  They  are 
identical  in  their  large  simplicity,  in  their  powerful 
rendering  of  elemental  characteristics,  in  their 
indifference  to  all  that  is  accidental  or  merely 
subtle.  The  characters  of  Sophocles,  his  Ajax,  his 
(Edipus,  his  Antigone,  in  the  grandeur  of  their 
pose,  in  their  bearing  and  gesture,  match  themselves 
inevitably  with  the  Fates  or  the  Demeter  and 
Persephone  of  the  Parthenon  pediment. 

How  many  moments  does  history  yield  so  charged 
with  interest  as  the  few  years  which  precede  and 
follow  the  opening  of  the  fifth  century  dn  Greece  ? 
Ever  since  then,  ever  since  the  day  when  the  rule  of 
reason  was  explicitly  recognised,  the  tendency  of 
Western  progress  has  always  been  to  advance 
on  intellectual  lines.  Western  science,  Western 
literature.  Western  politics.  Western  art,  have 
assumed,  under  intellect's  guidance,  that  aspect  of 
continuity,  coherence  and  rational  development 
which  distinguishes  them  from  the  spasmodic, 
incoherent  and  entirely  unprogressive  science, 
literature,  politics  and  art  of  the  East.  And,  it  may 
be  said,  the  West  has  always  realised  that  this  was 
its  mission,  that  the  cultivation  of  the  rational 
faculty  and  the  application  of  the  rational  standard 
were  tasks  especially  committed  to  its  care*  The 
entire  classical  structure  might  be  submerged  and 
lost  to  sight,  and  barbarism  and  the  primitive 
instincts  hold  a  carnival  among  the  ruins  of  the 
civilisation  they  had  laid  waste ;  yet  when  those 
passions  were  laid  and  that  tumult  had  subsided, 
the  whisper  that  made  itself  heard  across  the  ages 

93 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
'^of  riot,  the  whisper  that  said  ''think,"  came  like  an 
exhortation  and  a  reminder.     Men  gave  ear  to  it, 
and  the  pack  of   European  nations,   like  hounds 
after  a  check,  settled  down  once  more  to  the  line  of 
rational  and  intellectual  progress.     He  must  possess 
but  a  weak  historical    sense  whose    interest  and 
attention   are  not  forcibly  drawn  to  the   moment 
when  the  new  motive  was  first  let  loose  ;  and  surely 
every  means  which   tends  to   illustrate  and  make 
clear  its  nature  and  the  character  of  the  revolution 
it  introduced  must  have  a  high  claim  on  our  regard. 
Let  the  reader  but  dwell  for  a  moment  on  the  gulf 
which  separates  the  ancient  pre-intellectual  civilisa- 
tions of  Egypt  and  Assyria  from  that  in  which  we 
live.     He  will  see  that  an    inanimate,   unyielding 
routine,  of  which  the  essential  condition  is  immo- 
bility, has  given  place  to  an  animated  progressive 
movement,   of    which    the    essential    condition    is 
constant  development  and  change.    There  is  the 
immobility  of    death ;    here  the   mobility  of  life. 
But  the  self-same  difference  is  just    as   apparent 
between  these  old  civilisations  and  that  of  Greece. 
The  transition  from  petrifaction  to  warm  life  comes 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Greek  era.     It  is  with  this 
moment  of  transition,  this  moment  of  awakening, 
as,  in  so  far  as  the  mind  is  concerned,  it  may  literally 
be  termed,  that  we,  as  we  study  the  beginnings  of 
Greek  sculpture,  are  concerned.     Here  before  our 
very  eyes  is  the  awakening ;  here  are  the  figures  of 
men  actually  struggling  into  reality  and  life  as  the 
new  intellectual  faculty  operates  upon  them.     It  is, 
in  all  truth,  a  moment  of  birth,  comparable  almost 
to  the  moment,  as  the  great  Florentine  has  con- 

94 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 
ceived  it,  when  the  first  of  our  race  felt  the  touch  of 
the  divine  finger  and  opened  heavy  eyes  in  which 
the  light  of  intelligence  and  recognition  for  the  first 
time  was  kindled. 

This  surely  is  a  spectacle  of  some  significance  ; 
yet  even  this  is  but  half  the  interest  derivable  from 
Greek  sculpture  by  associating  it  with   the  life   it 
grew  out  of.     For,  if  it  reveals  the  dawn  of  intellect, 
that  art  reveals  also   the   nature,  the  proportions, 
and,  by-and-by,  the  limitations  of  intellect.    Sculp- 
ture in  Greek  hands  is  a   definition  and,  Hke   all 
definitions,  a  criticism  of  intellectualism.    In  defining 
what  intellectualism  is  it   indicates  what  it  is  not. 
"Though   in   many  respects   the   ancients  are  far 
above  us,  yet,"  writes  Matthew  Arnold,  "there  is 
something  which  we  demand  that  they  can  never 
give."     There    it    is  !     In   spite   of    its    quality  of 
sculptured  clearness — nay,  to  speak  rightly,  because 
of  its  quality  of  sculptured  clearness— Greek  thought 
has  proved  in  the  long  run  not  adequate  to  human 
needs.     Its  very  perfection   has  been  its  undoing. 
Purity  of  form  denotes  exactitude  of  definition,  and 
exact   definition    involves  the   idea    of    limitation. 
The  consciousness  of  limitation,  in  spite  of  an  ever- 
present  beauty  and  harmony,  is,  as  we  study  Greek 
literature  and  art,  never  far  from  us.     If  w^e  dwell 
on  that  sense  of  limitation  we  shall,  perhaps,  find 
that  it  is  produced  by  the  inherent  tendency  of  the 
Greek  mind  to  rely  on  one  set  of  faculties  only,  on 
the  rational  and  intellectual  faculties,  that  is  to  say, 
and  to  ignore  as  much  as  possible  that  other  side  of 
the  mind  whose  subject-matter  is  the  spiritual,  and 
whose    mode    of  procedure    is    not    analysis    and 

95 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

definition,  but  pure  receptivity  and  the  adoption  of 
an  attitude  of  passive  contemplation.  The  gleams 
of  spiritual  vision  thus  accorded  are,  and  are  bound 
to  be  because  of  the  order  of  ideas  they  deal  with, 
vague  and  indefinite ;  and  doubtless  the  exquisite 
lucidity  of  Greek  thought,  together  with  its  counter- 
part, the  purity  of  form  of  Greek  sculpture,  are 
largely  due  to  their  successful  exclusion.  Neverthe- 
less, these  gleams  of  illumination  or  inward  vision 
constitute  not  the  least  precious  part  of  our 
enlightenment,  and  the  faculties  which  receive  such 
promptings  are  not  among  those  which  we  can  afford 
permanently  to  ignore.  This  we  have  come  to  per- 
ceive more  clearly  than  the  Greeks  could  do.  This 
inward  spiritual  prompting,  with  its  accompanying 
sense  of  the  infinite  and  the  indefinite,  is,  I  suppose, 
that  "something"  over  and  above  intellectualism 
which  we  demand  and  which  the  ancients  "can 
never  give."  In  this  sense  it  is  that  Greek  sculpture 
yields  us  not  the  value  only,  but  the  limits  to  the 
value,  of  Greek  ideas.  Its  clear-cut  outlines  are  the 
boundaries  of  the  Greek  intelligence. 

I  hope  in  a  later  chapter  to  follow  up  these 
remarks  on  the  rise  of  Greek  sculpture  with  some 
observations  on  its  decline  during  what  is  known  as 
the  Hellenistic  period,  and  on  the  later  revival  of 
the  art  at  the  time  of  the  Renaissance.  In  both 
these  periods  there  are  to  be  found  signs  of  conflict 
and  struggle  in  the  sculpture  itself,  due,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  to  the  influence  of  certain  ideas  which  did 
not  admit  of  being  translated  into  exact  forms. 
These  signs  of  conflict  and  struggle  shed  a  very 
interesting  light  on  Greek  sculpture  itself,  and,  I 

96 


ENTER  THE  GREEK 

think,  bear  out  what  I  have  said  in  regard  to  its 
cause  of  origin  and  the  nature  of  its  Hmitations. 
One  concluding  point  I  would  here  emphasise  :  It 
was  stated  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  what  is 
common  knowledge,  that  modern  art  criticism  is 
usually  conducted  as  a  special  study  confined  to  art 
alone,  and  that,  while  recognising  the  artistic  or 
aesthetic  value  of  art,  it  very  seldom  takes  the  trouble 
to  look  for  any  human  and  historical  interest  which 
it  may  contain.  In  these  pages  a  rough  attempt  has 
been  made  to  regard  sculpture,  not  as  disjoined 
from,  but  as  united  to  life,  and  as  deriving  its  main 
interest  and  significance  from  life.  The  passage 
from  cast-iron  Egyptian  convention  to  Greek 
warmth  and  mobility  has  been  viewed  as  the 
transition  from  intellectual  stagnation  and  atrophy 
to  intellectual  initiative  and  vitality.  Will  the 
reader,  the  next  time  he  visits  the  British  Museum, 
take  this  idea,  such  as  it  is,  with  him  and  there  eke 
out  its  imperfections  ?  If  he  will  do  this,  and  if,  as 
he  looks  at  the  dissolving  stiffness  and  slow  awaken- 
ing of  the  sculptured  figures  before  him,  he  will  turn 
back  into  Greek  history  and  observe  in  Greek  poetry 
the  same  life-giving  process  taking  effect,  and  in 
Greek  politics  and  science  and  philosophy  kindred 
signs  of  a  growing  consciousness  of  the  real  nature 
of  things,  he  will,  I  cannot  help  thinking,  be  inclined 
to  agree  that  the  representation  here  given  by  art  of 
a  great  movement  in  the  development  of  thought  is 
unapproached  for  vividness  and  dramatic  force. 
Such  a  representation  drives  into  us  the  meaning  of 
that  movement  as  nothing  else  can.  And  so  I  say 
thatj  strip  art  of  that  interest  and  you  strip  it  of  a 

o  97 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
large  share  of  its  hold  upon  our  attention.  Many 
books  on  sculpture  have  appeared  quite  recently. 
On  my  own  table,  besides  Professor  Gardner's  book, 
I  happen  to  have  Lord  Balcarres'  work  on  the 
Italian  sculptors,  a  book  of  short  studies  by  Mr.  Hill, 
a  "  Life  of  Michael  Angelo  "  by  Mr.  Gerald  Davies, 
and  an  important  work  on  Florentine  sculpture  by 
Professor  Bode,  These  books  are  valuable  and  are 
read  by  people  who  are  interested  in  artistic  theories 
and  solutions,  but  they  do  not  appeal  to  the  far 
wider  public  which  is  interested  in  history  and  in 
life.  Yet  they  might  easily  be  made  to  do  so. 
They  would  not,  by  linking  art  to  the  ideas  which 
gave  it  tirth,  lose  anything  of  their  aesthetic  signi- 
ficance— nay,  they  would  probably  gain  in  that 
province  too  ;  but  apart  from  that  they  would 
appeal  to  numbers  of  readers  for  the  sake  of  their 
interpretation  of  that  living  interest  which  art  always 
in  greater  or  less  degree  contains,  though  not  often 
does  it  contain  so  much  of  it  as  in  the  case  of  Greek 
sculpture. 


98 


CHAPTER  IV 
WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 

Greek  and  Gothic  art  compared  :  Gothic  architecture  a 
picture  of  contemporary  life  :  Aloofness  of  the  Doric  temple 
from  such  life  :  What  hold  had  it  on  Greek  hfe?  :  The 
aesthetic  sense  as  a  source  of  ideas  :  Proportion,  harmony, 
unity  at  once  aesthetic  and  ethical  principles  :  Similarity 
between  the  eye  and  the  mind  :  Hence  possibility  of  appeal- 
ing to  the  mind  through  the  eye — e.g.  an  image  of  harmony, 
unity,  &c.,  presented  to  the  eye  will  stimulate  a  mental  recog- 
nition of  those  principles  :  Use  the  Greeks  made  of  this 
thought  :  Doric  architecture  an  embodiment  of  the  ethica* 
conceptions  which  governed  Greek  life 

IN  that  excellent  book  of  his,  "  The  Classical  Heri- 
tage of  the  Middle  Ages,"  Mr.  Taylor  points  out 
that  "  the  Greeks  reached  their  ethical  conceptions 
in  part  through  philosophical  speculation  .  .  .  and 
in  part  through  their  sense  and  understanding  of 
the  beautiful ;  that  is,"  as  he  proceeds  to  explain, 
"through  the  aesthetic  and  artistic  side  of  their 
nature,  which  sought  everywhere  harmony,  fitness 
and  proportion,"  The  first  statement  presents  no 
difficulties.  Philosophical  speculation  is  just  as 
much  a  way  to  knowledge  now  as  it  was  in  the 
days  of  the  Greeks.  But  the  second  is  much  harder 
to  understand.  How  are  ethical  conceptions,  how 
are  ideas  of  what  is  right  and  wrong  in  conduct,  to 
be  derived  from  the  haesttice  sense  and  the  under- 
standing of  the  beautiful?  The  very  thought  of  an 
ethical  significance  in  the  word  '^  beauty  "  has  almost 

99 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
died  out.  It  lasted,  indeed,  far  on  into  Christian 
times.  Early  Christian  philosophy,  especially  that 
which  emanated  from  Alexandria  and  was  nourished 
on  Greek  ideas,  habitually  deals  with  beauty  as 
synonymous  with  truth.  But  that  meaning  of  the 
w^ord  has  evaporated.  No  one  now  would  think  of 
describing  a  search  after  truth  as  a  search  after  the 
beautiful. 

It  is  pretty  safe  to  say,  unless  the  reader  has 
derived  it  from  Greek  art,  that  the  notion  of  the 
aesthetic  sense  originating  and  being  a  source  of 
ethical  conceptions  will  scarcely  have  occurred  to 
him.  Other  races  have  employed  art  as  a  vehicle 
to  express  ideas  and  convictions  previously  arrived 
at,  and  it  has  been  in  proportion  as  these  precon- 
ceived ideas  have  been  strongly  and  decidedly  held 
that  the  art  embodying  them  has  assumed  a  definite 
and  significant  character.  But  to  express  ideas, 
however  vigorously,  is  not  to  initiate  them. 

The  distinction  between  an  art  which  initiates 
and  an  art  which  expresses  ideas  is  perfectly 
exemplified  in  the  difference  between  Greek  and 
Gothic  architecture.  A  Gothic  cathedral  is  the 
finest  and  most  complete  presentment  remaining  to 
us  of  the  life  and  thought  of  the  mediaeval  age.  It 
is  full  of  the  exalted  energy  which  was  the  master 
sentiment  of  the  epoch  of  the  Crusades,  and  it  is 
full  of  the  extraordinary  democratic  vigour  of  a 
time  when  all  classes  of  the  people,  banded  in  their 
arts  and  guilds,  were  animated  by  a  virile  pride  in 
their  labour  and  a  consciousness  of  the  value  of  it. 
It  is  the  keynote  of  mediaeval  life  that  the  whole  of 
it,  down  to  the  commonest  industries  and  poorest 

100 


WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  G-feEEkS '' 
acts  of  toil,  was  inspired  by  a  vigorous  spirit  of 
dignity  and  independence  ;  and  all  this  was  poured 
into  mediaeval  art.  To  us,  of  the  same  race  and 
blood  as  its  builders,  this  art  still  appeals  as  it  did 
to  them.  It  expresses  us  as  it  expressed  them.  If 
it  is  not  strictly  artistic  in  the  academic  sense,  if  it 
is  not  laid  out  and  proportioned  by  abstract  rule,  it 
is  none  the  worse  for  that.  We  are  not  going  to 
art  for  a  justification  of  what  stirs  our  hearts  so 
deeply.  The  Gothic  cathedrals,  Mr.  Lethaby  de- 
clares, "are  more  than  art."  He  means  that  their 
appeal  as  an  interpretation  of  life,  their  eloquent 
appeal  to  the  racial  sentiments  and  emotions  we 
still  share  in,  is  of  itself  their  justification,  and  is 
a  better  justification  than  adherence  to  aesthetic 
laws,  which,  he  admits,  were  ignored  by  their 
originators. 

Perhaps  he  is  right.  But,  while  we  extol  Gothic 
for  what  it  gives  us,  let  us  also  note  the  one  small, 
and  in  our  eyes  insignificant,  thing  which  it  fails  to 
give.  Gothic  art  has  in  it  no  power  to  initiate 
ideas,  nor  was  it  ever  used  or  regarded  as  if  it 
possessed  any  such  power.  It  was  used  to  record 
ideas.  For  this  its  contemporaries  loved  and  valued 
it,  because  it  uttered  their  lives  for  them ;  and  for 
this  we,  being  of  the  same  national  stock  and  sym- 
pathies, love  and  value  it  still.  But  this  was  not 
the  Greek  notion  of  the  function  of  art  at  all.  So 
little  so  that  there  is  not  a  single  merit  in  Gothic 
which,  in  Greek  eyes,  would  not  have  been  a 
demerit.  There  is  not  an  end  striven  for  which, 
in  Greek  eyes,  it  would  not  have  been  degradation 
to  attain.     Between  the  two  there  is  no  question  of 

lOI 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

degree  of  excellence,  or  greater  and  less  perfection. 
The  question  is  one  of  the  whole  end  and  aim  of 
art  and  its  intended  use  to  mankind.  A  Greek, 
reared  in  his  own  race's  ideals  in  matters  of  art, 
would,  if  he  were  brought  into  the  presence  of 
Gothic,  assuredly  tell  us,  not  that  this  style  was  in 
certain  respects  different  and,  in  his  own  estima- 
tion, probably  inferior  to  his  own,  but  that  it  was 
not  art  at  all ;  that  it  was  not  the  creation  of  the 
artistic  faculty,  and  did  not  serve  the  purposes 
which  art  was  intended  to  serve.  And  if  we  were 
to  press  into  his  meaning,  he  would  explain  that 
this  art  was  worthless  for  the  very  reason  that  we 
love  it  so,  because  it  is  merely  a  record  of  life. 
Yes,  he  would  insist,  an  art  which  aspires  only  to 
reflect  the  life  of  its  time,  with  all  its  fugitive  daily 
interests,  which  is  swayed  by  human  impulses  and 
caprices,  and  takes  its  colour  from  the  whims  and 
fantasies  of  the  moment,  is  an  art  which  has  become 
life's  slave.  It  offers  no  independent  testimony  of 
its  own,  for  it  does  not  act  according  to  its  own 
volition.  It  does  not  obey  its  own  law^s,  for  it  does 
not  even  know  that  it  has  laws  of  its  own  to  obey. 
It  does  what  life  tells  it  to  do,  and  says  what  life 
tells  it  to  say.  We  can  imagine  our  visitor's  grow- 
ing perplexity  and  concern  in  this  world  of  Gothic, 
and  how  at  last  he  would  break  out  almost  incre- 
dulously :  "  Do  you  really  believe,  then,  that  the 
aesthetic  sense  was  given  us  merely  to  record  our 
own  petty  whims  and  impulses  ?  If  so,  you  ignore 
the  nature  of  the  faculty  and  the  part  it  should  play 
in  human  life.  What  is  that  part  ?  It  is  to  illumine 
life,  not  to  record  it ;  to  be  a  guide,  not  an  echo  ; 
102 


WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 

to  be  a  witness  to  ethical  truths,  not  indeed  by 
explaining  their  truth,  but  by  demonstrating  their 
beauty." 

This  would  be  the  Greek  criticism,  and  for  two 
reasons  we  should  give  it  a  hearing.  In  the  first 
place,  the  \  most  cursory  acquaintance  with  the 
Doric  style  reveals  in  the  Greek  view  a  remarkable 
consistency.  That  which  first  strikes  a  Northern 
eye  in  regard  to  Doric  is  its  lack  of  all  interest  and 
significance  derived  from  contemporary  life.  It  is 
true  the  subjects  of  its  sculptured  groups,  when 
such  existed,  were  mostly  taken  from  Greek  history 
or  myth.  But  these  representations  were  at  the 
most  racial,  never  local.  Such  vague  legends  as 
the  wars  of  Centaurs  or  Amazons  are  not  impres- 
sions of  life  in  the  Gothic  sense.  Their  interest  is 
ideal  and  remote,  not  actual  and  immediate.  More- 
over, these  sculptures  are  independent  of  the 
structure,  which  is  perfect  without  them ;  their 
appearance  was  optional,  and  in  more  cases  than 
not  they  were  dispensed  with  altogether.  Nothing 
in  the  Gothic  sense  personal,  nothing  of  local  or 
temporary  interest,  finds  a  place  in  the  Doric 
temple.  It  is  detached.  For  centuries  the  type 
does  not  vary.  Cities  rise  and  fall,  generations 
come  and  go,  but  this  characteristic  achievement  of 
the  Greek  genius  scarcely  changes  by  the  inflection 
of  a  line.  Aloof  from  human  life,  the  accidents  and 
passions  of  men's  lot  do  not  touch  it.  Whatever 
may  have  been  its  attraction  for  the  race  which 
evolved  it,  it  was  not  the  Gothic  attraction.  It  was 
not  the  attraction  of  an  art  which  expresses  the  life 
of  its  own   time   and    place.    Doric   architecture 

103 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
knows  nothing  of  the  life  going  on  round  it.     It 
utterly  ignores  that  life. 

And  yet — and  this  is  the  second  consideration  I 
spoke  of — the  reality  of  the  attraction  exercised  by 
the  Doric  style,  the  depth  and  genuineness  of  the 
love  which  the  Greeks  felt  for  their  temples,  admit 
of  no  doubt  whatever.  The  most  commanding  site 
in  or  near  the  city  was  the  temple's  unquestioned 
perquisite,  and  no  Greek  settlement  or  colony  con- 
sidered itself  launched  and  fit  to  live  its  own  life 
until  one  at  least,  but  more  likely  a  whole  group,  of 
these  stately  edifices  surveyed  its  fortunes  from  the 
neighbouring  eminence.  The  temple,  we  are  bound 
to  admit  it,  filled  quite  as  big  a  place  in  Greek  life  as 
the  Gothic  cathedral  did  in  mediaeval  life.  The 
Greeks  got  something  out  of  these  buildings,  and 
something,  in  their  eyes,  of  value.  It  was  not  what 
our  forefathers  got  out  of  Gothic.  What,  then, 
was  it  ? 

The  question  drives  us  back  again  upon  the  Greek 
notion  of  the  function  of  art,  that  it  was  to  be  a 
source  of  ideas  not  a  record  of  them.  In  what 
way  can  art  be  a  source  of  ideas  ?  Whatever  ideas 
are  contained  in  a  work  of  art,  must  they  not  have 
originated  in  the  mind  of  the  artist,  and,  in  that 
sense,  must  not  the  work  of  art  be  a  record  rather 
than  a  source  of  ideas  ?  If  this  be  so  the  case  for 
an  artistic  origination  of  ethical  conceptions  falls  to 
the  ground.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  still  uphold 
that  case,  to  what  are  we  driven  ?  Ideas  are  mental 
property.  We  know  nothing  of  ideas  other  than 
the  mind's  ideas.  If,  therefore,  a  work  of  art  con- 
tains  ideas,  but  ideas  not  derived  from  the  mind,  it 
104 


WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 

must  mean  that  those  ideas  were  infused  into  it, 
not  in  the  guise  of  ideas  and  not  under  the  mind's 
prompting.  They  were  infused  as  something  other 
than  ideas,  and  at  the  instigation  of  a  sense  or 
faculty  other  than  the  mind,  and  then,  somehow 
or  other,  they  hatched  out  into  ideas,  or  ethical 
conceptions,  later.  This  may  sound  a  somewhat 
extravagant  theory,  nevertheless,  once  we  entertain 
the  claim  of  art  to  be  a  source  of  ideas,  to  this 
conclusion  we  are  inevitably  driven.  We  are  driven 
to  it,  and  when  we  apply  it  to  Greek  art  we  find  its 
extravagance  diminish.  Nay,  we  even  find  it  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  a  solution.  It  is  the  case, 
when  we  come  to  examine  into  the  matter,  that  a 
Doric  temple  is  charged  and  saturated  with  ideas 
which  were  not  put  into  it  as  ideas  at  all,  and  which 
were  not  supplied  by  the  mind  but  by  another 
faculty. 

Fergusson,  the  sanest,  after  all,  of  our  architec- 
tural critics,  has  the  remark  that  the  sensitiveness  of 
vision  of  the  Greeks  was  equivalent  to  a  "new 
sense,"  the  potentialities  and  limitations  of  which 
are  to  our  duller  perception  not  very  apparent. 
The  remark  was  occasioned  by  the  discoveries 
brought  to  light  by  the  elaborate  measurements  of 
the  Parthenon  undertaken  by  Penrose  about  sixty 
years  ago.  These  measurements  pointed  to  a 
state  of  things  quite  unsuspected.  There  could, 
apparently,  be  no  more  obvious  and  simple  plan 
of  construction  than  that  of  a  Doric  temple.  A 
horizontal  weight  resting  on  vertical  supports  is  the 
most  primitive  of  architectural  ideas,  and  the  temple 
is  really  nothing  else.    The  traveller  in  Greece  or 

105 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
Sicily,  coming  upon  these  gaunt  colonnades,  is 
inclined  to  wonder  at  the  pleasing  effects  obtained 
by  such  simplicity,  but  does  not  question  the  sim- 
plicity itself.  Yet  this  simplicity  is  but  a  mask. 
Beneath  it  lurks  a  subtlety  to  which  there  is  nothing 
comparable  in  the  art  of  any  other  people.  Pen- 
rose's measurements  revealed  the  fact  that  the 
temple  in  all  its  parts  and  proportions  was  under 
the  influence  of  certain  inflections  which  infuse 
a  kind  of  mystery  into  the  most  matter-of-fact 
appearances,  and  which  meet  all  attempts  at  sum- 
mary description  with  a  gentle  contradiction. 
Nothing  seems  more  evident,  for  instance,  than 
that  the  peristyle,  as  the  parallelogram  of  columns 
forming  the  temple's  outer  wall  is  called,  is  of 
mathematically  regular  construction.  It  is  com- 
posed of  so  many  vertical  shafts,  of  equal  size  and 
height,  standing  equidistant  from  each  other  on 
a  flat  platform,  and  supporting  a  vertical-faced 
entablature  of  horizontal  extension.  Scientific 
analysis,  however,  negatives  every  one  of  these 
statements.  These  columns,  it  assures  us,  do  not 
stand  vertically,  but  imperceptibly  lean  inwards. 
They  are  not  quite  of  equal  height,  nor  of  exactly 
the  same  dimensions,  for  the  angle-shafts  and  their 
next-door  neighbours  are  slightly  thicker  than  the 
rest.  They  do  not  stand  equidistant,  for  in  each 
colonnade  the  gaps  are  a  little  reduced  as  the 
corner  is  approached.  They  do  not  rise  out  of  a 
flat  platform ;  the  platform  is  in  a  very  slight  degree 
curved,  or  cushion-shaped.  Neither  is  the  en- 
tablature either  upright  or  of  horizontal  extension. 
It  leans  outwards  a  trifle,  and  is  therefore  not 
1 06 


WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 
vertical ;  and  it  is  slightly  curved,  like  the  platform 
and  is  therefore  not  horizontal. 

Baffled  in  every  way,  and  headed  off  at  every 
turn,  the  spectator  feels  like  some  traveller  in  mid- 
desert,  who,  riding  down  to  a  blue  sheet  of  water 
under  an  overhanging  rock,  finds  to  his  astonish- 
ment the  water  recoil  from  him  and  his  lake 
dissolve  in  air.  Nothing  in  this  strange  art  is  what 
it  seems  to  be.  The  most  obvious  facts  turn  out 
not  to  be  facts  at  all.  And  the  closer  we  carry  our 
examination  the  more  the  mystery  spreads  and 
deepens.  It  infects  the  whole  temple.  It  touches 
and  alters  cornice  and  frieze,  architrave  and  abacus, 
capital  and  column.  It  reaches  to  the  foundations 
and  even  to  the  flights  of  steps  which  form  the 
approach  to  the  building.  There  is  not  a  single 
feature,  nay,  there  is  not  a  single  stone,  in  the 
structure  which  is  unconscious  of  this  mystery  or 
which  is  in  itself  the  mechanically  regular  and 
rectilinear  object  it  seems  to  be.  In  some  slight 
and  entirely  unnoticeable  degree  the  mechanical 
regularity  of  every  stone  is  deflected,  the  deflection 
representing  that  particular  stone's  share  in  the 
curve  or  inclination  of  the  feature  of  which  it 
forms  part. 

Now  I  must  not  here  dwell  on  these  mysterious 
inflections.  I  must  leave  them  to  the  reader's  con- 
sideration. He  must  remember  that  we  are  dealing 
with  huge  structural  forms,  with  columns  thirty  to 
forty  feet  high  and  from  six  to  seven  feet  in 
diameter  at  the  base,  and  with  a  masonry  often 
composed  of  blocks  of  stone  or  marble  twelve  to 
fourteen  feet  in  length.    He  must  remember  that 

507 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

the  inflections  applied  to  these  masses  are  calculated 
in  minute  fractions  of  inches,  and  are  as  a  rule  to 
average  sight  quite  imperceptible  ;  and  he  must 
also  remember  that  an  infinity  of  labour  and  skill 
and  expense  went  to  the  carrying  out  of  these  in- 
flections. If  he  allows  due  weight  to  these  con- 
siderations he  will  agree  that  such  alterations  as 
Ihese  constitute  a  very  mysterious  phenomenon  in 
the  history  of  art,  and  one  which  challenges  a  closer 
scrutiny.  How  are  they  to  be  explained  ?  After  a 
good  deal  of  discussion  it  appears  that  the  ex- 
planation of  one  particular  alteration  is  the  ex- 
planation of  all.  It  had  long  been  observed  that  a 
long  horizontal  line,  seen  full  face,  though  in  itself 
perfectly  straight,  appears  to  the  eye  to  sag  in  the 
middle  and  become  slightly  concave.  The  fact  that 
the  Doric  stylobate  or  platform  was  rounded  was 
easily  apparent  to  any  one  who  happened,  instead 
of  looking  at  it,  to  look  along  its  edge  from  either 
angle.  It  was,  therefore,  readily  conjectured  that 
this  Greek  device  of  adding  actual  convexity  was 
designed  to  obviate  an  apparent  concavity.  It  w^as 
an  extremely  difficult  and  complicated  undertaking, 
for  the  Greeks  made  no  allowances  in  the  joint- 
ing of  their  masonry,  which  was  of  an  exquisite 
accuracy  and  fineness,  but  cut  each  stone  as  a 
section  of  a  flat  arch.  Moreover,  the  difficulty  was 
greatly  increased  by  the  necessity  of  fusing  together 
the  end  curves  and  side  curves  of  the  platform, 
much  as  the  curves  of  a  vault  are  dovetailed 
together,  only  the  present  vault  is  confined  to  a  rise 
of  about  three  inches  in  a  span  of  two  hundred 
feet.  Still  the  necessary  labour  was  undertaken, 
io8 


WHAT  ART  I^vIEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 
and  undertaken,  obviously  enough,  for  the  sake  of 
correcting  a  carefully  analysed  optical  illusion. 

As  closer  investigation  disclosed  the  presence  of 
more  of  these  delicate  inflections,  they,  too,  were 
found  amenable  to  the  same  interpretation.  It  is 
a  truth  admitting  of  simple  verification  that  light 
masses  against  a  dark  background  appear  larger, 
and  dark  masses  against  a  light  background  smaller 
than  they  really  are,  light  possessing  a  power  of 
encroaching  upon  or  eating  away  darkness.  Down 
the  greater  part  of  the  length  of  a  Doric  colonnade 
the  columns  tell  as  light  masses  against  the  shaded 
cella  wall  behind  them.  The  peristyle,  however, 
being  of  greater  length  than  the  cella,  its  corner 
columns  stand  clear,  and  the  gaps  between  them 
are  empty  space.  Here,  then,  it  is  the  gaps,  or 
background,  that  tell  as  light  masses  and  the 
columns  as  dark  masses.  These  observations  gave 
the  clue  to  the  changes  wrought  in  the  peristyle. 
Greek  vision  had  noted  the  illusion  and  calculated 
its  extent.  As  soon  as  the  gaps  became  the  light 
masses  they  were  slightly  diminished,  and  as  soon 
as  the  columns  became  the  dark  masses  they  were 
slightly  increased.  So  with  the  other  alterations 
we  were  speaking  of :  they  are  all  directed  to 
the  same  end.  Probably  the  most  far-reaching 
alteration  effected  is  the  inclination  inwards  of  all 
the  vertical  lines  of  the  temple  so  as  to  form 
the  base  of  a  vast  pyramid,  or  spire,  of  which  the 
base  alone  is  visible.  I  must  leave  the  reader  to 
consider  for  himself  what  must  be  the  difficulty, 
in  the  inclination,  say,  to  the  extent  of  two  inches 
of  a  column   thirty  feet  high,  of  working  out  the 

109 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
necessary  alteration  in  each  separate  drum  of 
which  the  column  is  composed.  He  will  find  the 
addition  in  skill,  labour  and  expense  incalculable. 
If  he  would  know  why  all  this  labour  was  under- 
taken, why  a  Doric  temple  is  built  in  the  semblance 
of  a  truncated  spire,  let  him  observe  the  apparent 
shape  of  any  plain  square-headed  tower  he  may 
chance  to  see  outlined  against  the  sky.  He  will 
observe  that  the  ascending  lines  of  the  structure 
apparently  diverge  as  they  mount,  giving  the  tower 
a  distinctly  top-heavy  effect.  This,  again,  is  a  law 
of  optics.  Parallel  vertical  lines  appear  to  diverge, 
and  this  illusion  it  is  which  the  Greeks  have  com- 
bated in  their  pyramidal-shaped  temples. 

So  far,  then,  we  find  the  Doric  temple  penetrated 
and,  so  to  speak,  suffused  with  slight  imperceptible 
inflections  of  line  and  contour,  involving  incalcul- 
able extra  trouble  and  expense  in  the  building,  and 
w^e  find  that  the  object  and  aim  of  all  these  ex- 
pedients is  to  adapt  the  outlines  of  the  temple  more 
perfectly  and  accurately  to  the  laws  of  sight.  The 
reader  will  observe  that  sight  is  the  governing  factor 
in  the  undertaking.  The  real  shape  of  the  thing  did 
not  matt(T  ;  it  was  the  apparent  shape  that  mattered. 
Ec  lal  columns  which  appeared  unequal  would  be 
made  unequal  to  appear  equal.  A  level  floor  which 
looked  unlevel  would  be  made  unlevel  to  appear 
level.  Vertical  lines  which  appeared  to  slant  w^ould 
be  made  to  slant  that  they  might  appear  vertical. 
Among  other  races  the  eye  has  been  called  upon  to 
adjust  itself  to  the  facts.  With  the  Greeks  the  facts 
are,  with  infinite  pains,  adjusted  to  the  eye.  We 
get  a  notion,  then,  of  what  Fergusson  meant  when 
IIO 


WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 
he  spoke  of  Greek  sight  as  an  added  sense.  It  has 
that  air.  To  turn  from  the  work  of  other  races  to 
Greek  work  is  to  find  the  sense  of  sight  placed  in  a 
position  of  authority  it  has  never  before  or  since 
occupied,  and  its  most  subtle  predilections  analysed 
and  provided  for  in  a  way  utterly  incomprehensible 
to  any  other  people.  It  is  really  hke  coming  under 
the  influence  and  watching  the  operations  of  a  new 
sense. 

These  are  facts  interesting,  perhaps,  or  at  least 
curious,  in  themselves.  But  their  chief  importance 
is  more  in  what  they  indicate  than  in  what  they  are. 
It  will  occur  to  the  reader  readily  enough  that  a  gift 
of  sight  so  sensitive  as  that  which  we  have  been 
studying  is  scarcely  likely  to  confine  its  energies  to 
the  correction  of  optical  delusions.  If  a  man  has  a 
singularly  keen  appreciation  of  the  laws  of  sight  in 
one  set  of  circumstances,  it  may  be  supposed  he 
will  have  a  similar  appreciation  of  them  in  other 
circumstances.  If  he  has  made  a  profound  study  of 
the  likes  and  dislikes  of  the  eye,  it  is  probable  his 
knowledge  will  stand  by  him  equally  in  his  creative 
as  in  his  corrective  work.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
whole  design  and  detail  of  a  Doric  temple  are  con- 
trolled by  that  sense  which  the  Greeks  had  wrought 
to  such  a  pitch  of  refinement.  There  is,  for  example, 
nothing  in  art  like  the  Greek  knowledge  of  propor- 
tion. We  talk  easily  but  vaguely  of  a  fafade  or  an 
interior  being  "  exquisitely  proportioned,"  but  the 
word  in  our  mouths  is  so  indefinite  that  we  scarcely 
know  what  we  mean  by  it.  ,  All  that  most  architects 
aim  at  in  this  matter  is  to  avoid  falling  into  flagrant 
error  on  one  side  or  the  other.    But  the  Greeks 

III 


THE  WORKS  OF  IMAN 
aimed  at  a  positive  mark,  the  tiny  buirs-eye  of 
absolute  perfection.  We  know  when  we  hold  out 
a  book  or  other  weight  at  arm's-length  that  the 
strength  we  exert  has  to  be  exactly  proportioned  to 
the  weight  supported.  The  slightest  superfluity  of 
strength,  and  up  goes  the  book.  The  slightest 
superfluity  of  weight  and  down  goes  our  arm. 
Support  and  burden  must  be  adjusted  in  a  point  of 
absolute  agreement.  It  was  so  the  Greeks  thought 
of  the  law  of  proportion.  The  adjustment  between 
the  great  horizontal  entablature  and  the  colonnades 
of  massive  shafts  is  the  single  but  tremendous 
structural  opportunity  of  the  Doric  temple.  The 
writer  remembers  still,  as  the  result  of  many  a 
month's  study  of  the  temples  of  Greece  and  Sicily, 
the  gradual  revelation  to  his  consciousness  of  the 
possibilities  of  the  law  of  proportion  as  exemplified 
in  Doric  architecture.  The  forms  used  are  them- 
selves expressive  in  the  highest  degree.  The  vast 
entablature,  a  burden  for  Titans,  built  of  great 
blocks  that  stretch  from  centre  to  centre  of  the 
shafts,  is,  despite  its  colossal  dimensions,  invested 
with  a  certain  fascinating  delicacy  from  the  sharp- 
ness  of  its  clear-cut  outlines  and  the  incisive  edges 
of  its  straight  mouldings.  The  perfection  of  its 
definition  invites  the  eye  to  study  with  exactitude  its 
relation  to  the  supporting  shafts.  And  these,  in 
serried  range,  elastic,  vigorous,  while  they  carry 
their  burden  with  buoyant  ease,  are  themselves 
ennobled  by  its  magnitude  and  the  gravity  of  the 
duty  they  perform.  Their  strength  is  nobly  exercised, 
yet  not  taxed.  Never  has  the  profound  structural 
idea  of  the  relation  of  the  means  to  the  end  received 

112 


VVHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 
such  eloquent  expression  as  here.  Every  shed- 
builder  who  lays  a  stick  on  two  uprights  has 
mastered  the  structural  principle  of  a  Doric  temple  ; 
but  the  Greeks  alone  have  comprehended  the  inward 
significance  of  the  act.  They  alone  have  perceived 
how  much  pleasure  might  be  called  forth  by  perfectly 
defined  strength  exerted  upon  an  exactly  adequate 
burden. 

Yet  in  this  we  are  but  observing  a  further 
application  and  use  of  that  sense  which  the  Greeks 
cultivated  so  assiduously.  The  same  extraordinary 
keenness  and  subtlety  of  vision  which  prompted 
them  to  elaborate  invisible  slants  and  curves  with  so 
much  pains  enables  them  to  strike  that  perfect 
balance  in  proportion  which  grows  upon  the  eye 
with  so  fascinating  a  power.  And  when  we  further 
study  the  detailed  arrangement  of  the  building  it  is 
but  to  observe  a  still  further  application  of  the  same 
faculty.  If  illustrations  were  permitted  it  would  be 
easy  to  show  by  what  means  the  sight  of  the 
spectator  is  guided  down  the  long  length  of  the 
structure  ;  how  effectively  the  powerful  line  of 
the  cornice  controls  the  eye's  energy,  bringing 
the  entire  building  within  easy  sweep  of  a  single 
glance ;  and  yet  at  the  same  time  how  equally 
effectively,  where  checks  are  necessary,  checks  are 
imposed,  and  by  what  subtle  means  the  eye's  course 
is,  as  we  approach  the  temple,  arrested  at  intervals 
and  transferred  to  the  frieze  beneath,  there  to  be  still 
further  penned  in  and  concentrated  on  the  groups 
of  the  metopes  by  the  short  heavy  lines  of  the 
vertical  triglyphs.  These,  however,  are  expedients 
which  require  illustrating  if  they  are  to  be  made 

H  113 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

clear.  Let  us  endeavour  to  keep  to  characteristics 
familiar  to  the  general  reader.  One  such  character- 
istic there  is  which  belongs  to  the  Doric  temple  not 
more  than  it  belongs  to  all  Greek  artistic  work,  a 
characteristic  which  all  will  recognise.  I  mean  the 
Greek  love  of  simplicity  and  smooth  surfaces,  the 
Greek  hatred  of  redundancy,  complication  and 
loaded  ornament.  It  is  probable  that  this,  in  almost 
every  one's  estimation,  constitutes  the  distinguishing 
mark  of  Greek  art.  The  word  "Greek"  to  most 
people,  and  very  rightly,  stands  primarily  for 
lucidity  ;  and  this  lucidity  is  arrived  at  by  the 
rigorous  lopping  away  of  every  line  and  particle  of 
ornament  the  presence  of  which  is  not  essential.  I 
have  often  thought  that  a  useful  way  of  impressing 
upon  children  the  methods  pursued  by  the  Greeks 
would  be  to  teach  them  that  Greek  art  is  based  on 
subtraction,  and  other  art  on  addition.  The 
instinct  of  most  people,  when  they  desire  to 
beautify,  is  to  spare  neither  labour  nor  expense, 
to  be  lavish  of  workmanship,  to  go  on  adding. 
The  result  is  sure  to  be  acclaimed.  Surfaces  loaded 
with  decoration  are  said  to  be  "  enriched "  with 
sculpture.  Carving  so  intricate  as  to  be  indecipher- 
able is  said  to  be  "  lace-like."  Those  entangled  and 
nerveless  designs  which  the  Arabs,  destitute  as  they 
are  of  all  sense  for  form  or  construction,  love  to 
plaster  over  their  walls  and  ceilings,  continue  to 
impose  on  us  owing  to  their  very  superfluity  of 
adornment.  No  matter  to  what  time  or  race  we 
turn,  from  the  little  finicking  incisions  which  cover 
Egyptian  tombs  and  temples,  down  to  the  ponderous 
decoration  of  our  modern  Government  buildings, 
114 


WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 
the  same  idea  prevails.  Every  buttress  must  be 
honeycombed  with  niches,  every  spandril  stuffed 
with  figures.  They  have  no  use  except  for  pigeons 
to  build  among.  Practically  they  are  invisible. 
Down  the  facade  of  the  new  Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum  are  dozens  upon  dozens  of  carved  figures 
which  no  mortal  eye  has  ever  seen  or  ever  will  see. 
They  are  there  not  because  they  count  for  anything 
to  the  eye  but  because  addition  is  the  rule  of  our 
art. 

To  what  extent  it  is  so,  a  comparison  with  Greek 
work  indicates.  The  Greeks  made  a  curiously  exact 
study  of  the  value  of  smooth  spaces  and  employed 
to  the  full  the  significance  which  smooth  spaces 
alone  can  confer,  and  the  resulting  refinement  of 
their  work  has  become,  as  I  have  said,  its  best-known 
characteristic.  At  the  same  time  let  the  reader 
observe  that  it  is  a  characteristic  arising  inevitably 
out  of  a  study  of  the  laws  of  sight.  We  can  easily 
satisfy  ourselves,  by  all  our  eyes  look  at  and  avoid, 
that  there  is  nothing  they  so  dislike  and  shrink 
from  as  complication.  They  cannot  abide  moving 
along  lines  which  are  apt  to  become  entangled  and 
involved,  nor  will  they  rest  for  a  moment  on  any 
surface  where  the  ornament  is  messy  and  over- 
crowded. Redundancy  satiates  the  eye  and  actually 
deprives  it  of  its  power  of  seeing.  Hence  the  aim 
of  the  Greek  artist  being  so  to  place  his  decoration 
that  every  touch  will  tell  with  full  effect,  he  naturally 
employs  as  a  background  a  liberal  allowance  of 
smooth  surface,  for  smooth  surface  collects,  so  to 
speak,  the  attention,  and  represents  the  eye's  power 
of  seeing.    In  many  everyday  ways  we  act  on  the 

115 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
same  knowledge.  We  know  that  an  object  placed 
in  a  crowd  is  overlooked,  while  one  standing  alone 
is,  as  we  call  it,  conspicuous.  But  here,  again,  the 
effectiveness  of  the  work  of  the  Greeks  appears  in 
the  delicacy  and  nicety  with  which  they  apportion 
space  to  ornament.  For  they  seem  to  know  exactly 
how  much  attention  any  given  space  can  collect, 
and  therefore  precisely  the  amount  of  ornament 
which  is  required  to  satisfy  without  fatiguing  it ;  the 
result  of  this  discrimination  being  that  each  touch 
of  theirs  shows  up  unencumbered,  with  a  kind  of 
starry  distinctness,  reminding  one  of  that  thought 
of  Wordsworth's  : 

''  Fair  as  a  star,  when  only  one 
Is  shining  in  the  sky." 

What,  then,  I  would  impress  upon  the  reader  with 
regard  to  a  Doric  temple  is  this,  that  not  only  are 
its  main  features  and  outlines  subtly  rounded,  slanted 
and  curved,  in  obedience  to  the  eye's  requirements, 
but  that  the  method  of  its  arrangement,  its  severe 
simplicity,  and  the  strict  and  calculated  parsimony  of 
its  ornament  are  appraised  by  the  same  standard. 
The  stranger  may  think  what  he  will  about  Doric 
architecture,  but  there  is  one  fact  about  it  which  he 
cannot  alter.  As  sure  as  one  object  on  a  table  is 
more  conspicuous  than  one  among  fifty,  as  sure  as 
a  tree  upon  the  hill-top  stands  out  more  clearly  than 
when  nestling  in  the  valley,  as  sure  as  horizontal 
lines  are  easier  for  sight  to  travel  on  than  vertical 
ones,  and  left  to  right  a  more  natural  motion  for  it 
than  right  to  left :  in  short,  as  surely  as  sight  has 
laws  of  its  own  over  w^hich  we  have  no  control  and 
ii6 


WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 
which  guide  its  every  movement,  so  certain  is  it 
that  Doric  architecture,  having  alone  subscribed  to 
those  laws  and  placed  itself  entirely  under  their 
jurisdiction,  is  alone  in  the  pleasure  it  affords  to  the 
faculty  of  sight. 

Here,  then,  we  find  such  a  source  as  we  are  in 
search  of.  We  said,  to  start  with,  that  a  Doric 
temple  is  saturated  with  ideas  which  were  not  put 
into  it  as  ideas  at  all,  and  which  were  furnished  by 
a  faculty  other  than  the  mind.  That  other  faculty 
is  the  faculty  of  sight,  and  the  motives  it  suggests,  it 
suggests  not  as  ideas  but  as  adaptations  of  form  and 
surface  to  the  requirements  of  the  eye.  But  though 
not  put  in  as  ideas,  these  motives  can  be  taken  out 
as  ideas.  It  is,  indeed,  difficult  to  speak  for  a 
moment  of  Doric  construction  without  being  led 
insensibly  into  the  language  of  ethics,  for  the  sug- 
gestions of  the  eye,  which  that  construction  every- 
where obeys,  turn  of  their  own  accord  into  ethical 
ideas  directly  they  take  shape  in  stone.  Certain 
words  and  phrases,  as  we  know,  have  the  same 
tendency.  Design,  proportion,  harmony,  the  sub- 
ordination of  the  parts  to  the  whole,  are  such 
words  and  phrases.  They]  apply  to  art  and  ethics 
both,  and  are  equally  used  of  things  relating  to  the 
eye  and  the  mind.  It  only,  therefore,  needs  that 
these  principles  should,  in  the  artistic  sphere,  be 
enforced  to  the  point  at  which  we  become  sensuously 
conscious  of  their  influence,  and  we  shall  at  the 
same  time  become  mentally  conscious  of  it  also. 
Let  proportion,  let  design  be  carried  to  a  point  of 
perfection  before  our  eyes,  and  the  same  act  of 
consciousness  which  reveals  the  apparent  and  visual 

117 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

significance  of  the  principle  reveals  also  and  carries 
deep  into  our  minds  and  hearts  its  intellectual  and 
ethical  significance.  A  moment  ago,  in  speaking  of 
Doric  proportions,  we  slipped  unconsciously  into 
the  ethical  view  of  the  matter,  and  spoke  of.  the 
ennobling  effect  of  their  duties  and  a  strength 
adequately  exercised  yet  not  taxed.  For  all  who 
have  laid  themselves  open  to  the  influence  of  Doric 
it  will  be  impossible  to  separate  this  view  from 
the  purely  aesthetic  Visual  perception  passes  into 
ethical  conception.  The  two  are  fused  together. 
We  think  with  the  eye  and  see  with  the  mind.  A 
new  certitude  suffuses  our  being.  What  was  only 
thought  to  be  true  is  now  seen  to  be  true. 

Let  me  emphasise  what  is  the  crux  of  the  whole 
matter.  It  is  the  general  supposition,  I  believe,  that 
the  eye  moves  along  as  evenly  and  indifferently  as 
the  shadows  and  sunbeams  which  chase  each  other 
across  a  landscape,  accepting  as  impartially  all  that 
comes  in  its  way ;  and  that,  when  it  rests,  it  rests  as 
easily  on  one  thing  as  another.  Nothing  could  be 
further  from  the  truth.  The  movement  of  the  eye 
is  not  uniform  and  even  ;  it  consists  of  a  series  of 
leaps  from  one  thing  to  another,  and  in  proportion 
to  the  speed  of  the  sweep  of  the  glance  is  the 
lightning  swiftness  of  the  short  leaps  which  com- 
pose it.  Yet  every  single  leap  is  taken  by  the  eye 
for  certain  reasons  of  its  own.  Like  a  goat,  it  picks 
its  path  as  it  goes,  selecting  this,  avoiding  that,  now 
hesitating,  now  turning  aside,  now  springing  boldly 
forward.  Its  course  is  a  zigzag  one,  but  for  each 
turn  it  has  motives  ;  and  if  we  were  to  go  into  the 
matter  carefully,  taking  our  eyes  slowly  backwards 
ii8 


WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 
and  forwards  over  the  same  line  of  country,  we 
should  find  that  not  only  would  they  repeat  their 
leaps  and  turns  with  the  most  perfect  regularity, 
but  that  the  eyes  of  all  other  people  whom  we  might 
choose  to  consult  would  behave  in  exactly  the  same 
manner.  Similarly,  in  regard  to  resting-places,  we 
should  find  that  our  eyes  had  likes  and  dislikes 
which  are  quite  outside  our  own  control ;  that 
they  are  particular  upon  what  they  lodge,  and 
will  not  remain  more  than  a  moment  at  rest  if 
surrounding  objects  either  disquiet  them  or  attract 
them  in  some  other  direction.  In  this  respect,  too, 
there  will  be  the  same  uniformity,  and  the  eyes  of 
all  men  will  be  influenced  in  a  similar  way. 

But  these  laws  of  sight,  being  fixed,  must  also  be 
definable,  and  if  the  reader  will  attempt  the  task  of 
defining  his  own  eyes'  likes  and  dislikes,  he  will 
find  himself  using  such  words  as  harmony,  articu- 
lation, proportion,  lucidity,  simplicity,  decision,  and 
so  on,  to  describe  their  likes,  and  such  words  as 
superfluity,  redundancy,  weakness,  vacillation,  to 
describe  their  dislikes.  He  will  find  himself,  that 
is  to  say,  using  ethical  language  to  describe  those 
laws  which  are  inherent  in  the  sight  of  all  creatures, 
even  to  some  extent  in  animals,  which  see  at 
all.  Of  course  of  all  this  interpretative  work  sight 
knows  nothing.  It  has  no  knowledge.  It  sees  or 
it  does  not  see;  it  seeks  or  shuns  certain  objects 
or  surfaces,  and  there  its  business  ends.  It  is  the 
mind  which,  noting  the  eyes'  movements,  supplies 
the  ethical  interpretation.  Still  the  eye  provides 
the  matter  to  be  interpreted,  and  if  in  any  given 
work  the  laws  of  sight  are  embodied  fully  and 

119 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
perfectly,  the  ethical  interpretation  becomes  inevit- 
able. 

Hence  it  follows  that  the  more  perfect  an  aesthetic 
arrangement,  the  more  inevitable  will  be  its  ethical 
effect.  The  reason  that  "  proportion  "  in  architec- 
ture suggests  to  us  now  nothing  ethical  is,  that  with 
us  the  principle  is  so  inadequately  carried  out  on 
the  aesthetic  side  that  it  does  not  reach  the  point 
of  ethical  consciousness.  In  the  same  way  the 
reason  we  never  now  connect  artistic  "  design " 
with  any  ethical  meaning  is  because  our  aesthetic 
design  is  not  aesthetic  to  the  required  pitch.  The 
pleasure  it  gives  to  the  eye,  when  it  gives  any,  is  of 
so  slight  and  accidental  a  kind  that  it  has  no  chance 
of  awakening  kindred  ideas  in  the  mind.  It  is  not 
aesthetic  enough  to  be  ethical. 

But  the  Doric  temple  is  aesthetic  enough  to  be 
ethical.  In  the  Doric  temple  design,  proportion, 
harmony,  unity,  and  so  on,  are  carried  to  such 
perfection,  purely  in  relation  to  sight,  that  through 
the  eye  they  enter  into  possession  of  the  mind. 
Does  the  reader  imagine  that  such  an  influence 
must  be  slight  or  negligible  ?  I  venture  to  say  that 
no  one,  puzzled  by  all  that  is  obscure  in  life  and 
baffled  by  the  eager  nothings  that  crowd  our  tran- 
sient days,  could  desire  a  move  effectual  restorative 
than  the  contemplation  of  Doric  architecture. 
Resist,  says  philosophy,  the  importunities  of  the 
passing  hours ;  he  who  is  diverted  from  his  pur- 
pose by  fugitive  impulses  will  accomplish  nothing  ; 
proportion  your  ends  to  your  means,  and,  instead 
of  frittering  away  energy  in  a  thousand  caprices, 
direct  it  to  the  purposes  of  some  worthy  design. 
\Z0 


WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 

Philosophers  have  much  to  say  in  this  vein,  but  for 
my  part,  no  words  of  theirs  have  ever  appealed  to 
me  with  half  the  force  of  those  mute  stones  which 
owe  ail  the  power  their  delicate  lines  are  charged 
with  to  their  enforcement  of  these  and  similar 
maxims.  Remote  as  we  are,  of  another  race, 
another  creed,  another  age,  still  it  is  impossible  even 
for  us,  sitting  among  the  olives  and  the  asphodel 
under  those  clear-cut  architraves,  not  to  feel,  as  the 
Greeks  felt,  their  persuasive  advocacy  of  all  that 
makes  life  sane  and  noble. 

It  was  thus  this  architecture  acted  on  the  Greeks. 
There  is  a  power  of  persuasion  in  the  sense  of  sight 
that  surpasses  even  the  power  of  reason.  It  is  one 
thing  to  be  told  that  purpose  implies  simplicity,  and 
another  to  absorb  through  sight  a  consciousness  of 
simplicity  in  its  visible  effect.  It  is  one  thing  to  be 
told  that  selflessness  is  the  cement  of  society  and 
selfishness  its  solvent,  and  another  to  be  impressed 
by  the  influence  of  a  structural  composition  which 
achieves  unity  through  the  willing  self-surrender  of 
all  its  component  parts.  Arguments  addressed  tc 
the  mind  are  strong,  but  a  spectacle  addressed  to 
the  eye  is  stronger.  Or,  even  if  it  be  denied  that  it 
is  stronger,  it  is  at  least  an  independent  testimony. 
Though  ethical  in  its  interpretation  it  was  not  ethical 
but  purely  aesthetic  in  its  conception.  By  following 
the  eye's  prompting  the  Greeks  were  led  to  these 
results.  There  has  always  existed  a  consciousness 
that  the  act  of  inward  preception  by  the  mind  is  one 
with  the  outward  act  of  seeing.  Mystics,  poets,  and 
all  who  realise  inward  things  vividly,  speak  of  the 
eye  of  the  mind  and  of  spiritual  sight,  and  we  have 

121 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
the  common  expression  ''I  see"  for  "I  understand." 
There  exists  a  relationship  between  the  laws  of  sight 
and  ethical  laws,  and  so  it  was  natural  enough  that 
the  Greeks,  following  the  eye's  dictates,  should  have 
been  led  to  an  independent  testimony  to  the  value 
of  ethical  truths.  Thus  considered,  the  aesthetic 
faculty  is  no  slave,  but  a  splendid  ally  of  the  mind. 
It  brings  troops  of  its  own  into  the  field,  and^sup- 
ports,  with  all  that  the  eye  holds  beautiful,  all  that 
the  mind  holds  true. 

This  great  thought  of  the  Greeks,  that  sight  is  an 
independent  faculty,  with  laws  of  its  own,  lasted, 
as  I  have  said,  both  as  a  philosophical  idea  and 
an  aesthetic  tradition,  far  into  the  Christian  era. 
Through  Byzantine  art  it  acted  on  the  art  of 
Europe.  It  lingered  to  the  twelfth  century,  and 
then  Gothic  killed  it.  Gothic  killed  it  by  promul- 
gating the  theory  that  art  exists  to  chronicle  the  life 
of  its  age.  The  discovery  produced  a  sensation, 
and  mediaeval  life  proceeded  with  enthusiasm  to 
embody  itself  in  mediaeval  art.  We  have  it  still  with 
us,  that  incomparably  vigorous  rendering  of  the  life 
of  a  period,  and  w^e  are,  no  doubt,  rightly  proud  of  it. 
But  we  have  paid  a  price  for  it.  We  have  given  up 
for  it  the  Greek  idea  of  sight  as  an  independent 

i  witness.  The  idea  that  the  mind  can  receive 
impressions  of  truth  through  the  eye  has  been 
lost.  Milton  laments  that,  in  his  blindness,  he 
drags  on  his  life  with 

"Wisdom  at  one  entrance  quite  shut  out." 

Such  has  been  our  lot  since  the  Gothic  revolution. 
We  arc  still  active  in  art.  We  register  in  it  our 
122 


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WHAT  ART  MEANT  TO  THE  GREEKS 

ideas  and  theories,  our  whims  and  caprices.    But 
we  can  no  longer  draw  from  it  that  succour  which 
the  Greeks  drew  when  they  looked  up   at  their  / 
temples,  raised  on  rocky  pedestals  for  clearer  view, 
and  read  there,  in  visible  form  depicted,  the  beauty  I 
and  pleasantness  of  noble  conduct,  I 


123 


m 


CHAPTER  V 

,  THE  LAST  WORD  IN  CLASSIC 

ARCHITECTURE 

Santa  Sophia  :  In  what  the  building  is  unique  :  Its  vindication 
of  the  idea  of  arch  construction  :  Romans  had  misused  that 
principle  :  The  Roman  jumble  of  arcuated  and  trabeated 
construction  :  The  Greeks  deliver  the  arch  from  this  confu- 
sion and  proceed  to  develop  its  intrinsic  possibilities  :  Santa 
Sophia  is  the  result  :  It  is  rather  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  last 
word  on  classic  building  than  as  the  inauguration  of  a  new 
style  :  Though  commonly  regarded  as  the  type  of  Byzantine 
it  does  not  pursue  the  Byzantine  ideal  :  It  is  not  an  architec- 
ture of  colour  nor  in  agreement  with  other  Byzantine  buildings 
in  its  mode  of  exhibiting  colour  :  It  is  animated  rather  by  the 
old  imperiarspirit  of  amplitude  and  order,  but  it  expresses  its 
idea  with  a  new  logic  and  power  :  All  that  Roman  architecture 
tried  to  be  and  could  not  is  attained  in  Santa  Sophia  :  As  a 
summing  up  of  the  classical  era  it  is  a  signal  illustration  of 
the  part  which  the  Greek  genius  had  played  in  that  era 

"SANTA  SOPHIA/'  says  Mr.  Van  Milligan  in  a 
book  on  Constantinople,  which  was  given  to  the 
present  writer  the  other  day  to  review,  "  is  the  finest 
monument  of  what  is  styled  Byzantine  art."  Else- 
where in  the  same  w^ork  it  is  affirmed  that  "  Santa 
Sophia  has  never  been  repeated."  I  do  not  know 
if  Mr.  Van  Milligan  is  an  authority  on  Byzantine 
architecture,  but  certainly,  so  far  as  the  judgment  of 
critics  goes,  he  has  ample  warrant  for  both  these 
statements.  Fergusson,  the  Gibbon  of  architectural 
history,  having  accepted  Santa  Sophia  as  "the 
grandest  and  most  perfect  creation  of  the  old  school 
124 


LAST  OF  CLASSIC  ARCHITECTURE 

of  Byzantine  art,"  declares  also  that  there  was  no 
building  "erected  durin^^  the  ten  centuries  which 
elapsed  from  the  transference  of  the  capital  to 
Byzantium  till  the  building  of  the  great  mediaeval 
cathedrals  (that  is  to  say,  during  the  entire  Byzan- 
tine period)  which  can  be  compared  with  it"  ;  and 
again  after  describing  the  plan  of  the  s*'  Picture  he 
tells  us  that  "  in  these  arrangements  Santa  Sophia 
seems  to  stand  alone."  Even  Mr.  Lethaby,  certainly 
one  of  the  foremost  authorities  at  the  present  time 
on  the  subject,  while  he  entirely  accepts  Justinian's 
church  as  the  central  type  of  the  style,  yet  adds, 
agreeing  with  Fergusson,  that  in  plan  it  is  "alone 
among  churches."  If  the  reader  cares  to  turn  over 
some  of  the  many  books  dealing  with  the  subject  he 
will  find  these  more  or  less  conflicting  views  very 
common.  He  will  find  the  church,  invariably  and 
as  a  matter  of  course,  treated  as  the  representative 
type  of  the  Byzantine  style,  but  he  will  also  find  it 
every  now  and  then,  and  as  though  unconsciously, 
treated  as  something  singular  and  unique.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  point  out  that  these  two  kinds  of 
statements  are  incompatible,  since  it  is  impossible 
for  a  building  to  be  the  type  of  a  style  and  at  the 
same  time  to  "stand  alone." 

These  two  propositions  are  contradictions  in 
terms,  but  yet,  as  applied  to  Santa  Sophia,  they 
have  perhaps  a  certain  significance,  even  a  certain 
appropriateness.  For  while  in  some  respects,  and 
these  very  striking  and  obvious  ones,  the  building 
may  be  said  to  belong  to  a  group  and  represent  a 
style,  in  others,  and  these  possibly  of  even  deeper 
significance,  it  is  original  and  strikes  out  a  line  of 

125 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
its  own.  Struck  by  the  immediate  similarities,  by 
the  use  of  certain  forms  common  to  the  Byzantine 
group,  such  as  the  apse,  the  dome,  the  vault,  and  by 
various  decorative  methods,  as  the  use  of  marble 
panelling  and  mosaics — the  first  impulse  of  the 
critic  is  to  accept  the  church  as  a  specimen  of 
Byzantine  art,  and  since  it  is  unapproached  of  its 
kind  in  size  and  richness  and  magnificence  it  is 
natural,  once  accepted,  that  it  should  be  promoted 
to  the  place  of  leader  and  most  honoured  representa- 
tive of  that  style.  And  yet  there  by-and-by  arise 
doubts,  for  as  soon  as  the  critic  begins  to  deal  with 
the  actual  composition  of  the  building,  the  develop- 
ment of  the  domical  theory  right  through  its 
structure,  the  rise  of  curve  out  of  curve  to  the  final 
triumph  of  the  great  dome,  and  the  unity  achieved 
by  the  dominance  of  a  single  structural  principle, 
he  finds  that  he  has  to  do  with  qualities  which  exist 
in  no  other  structure,  and  accordingly  he  changes 
his  note  and  instead  of  a  representative  building 
we  have  one  that  "  stands  alone." 

It  seems  pretty  clear  that  in  dealing  with  a  ques- 
tion like  this — as  to  the  extent  to  which  a  building 
belongs  to  a  certain  style  and  the  degree  to  which  it 
is  separable  from  it — the  point  to  be  considered  is 
whether  it  belongs  to  the  style  by  what  is  essential, 
or  by  what  is  accidental.  There  are  traits  in 
architecture  which  are  vital,  and  in  which  the 
architectural  character,  or  style,  of  the  building 
resides.  There  are  others  which  are  more  or  less 
superficial  and  perhaps  more  or  less  interchangeable 
between  several  styles.  The  question,  therefore, 
we  have  to  put  is,  does  Santa  Sophia  represent  the 
126 


LAST  OF  CLASSIC  ARCHITECTURE 
Byzantine  style  by  traits  which  are  essential  in  its 
own  structure,  or  are  these  essential  traits  those  in 
which  it  stands  alone,  and  does  it  represent  the  style 
rather  in  accidents  and  details  ?  On  the  answer  to 
such  a  question  the  place  of  the  Church  in  the 
history  of  architecture  must  depend. 

The  main  characteristics  of  the  Greek  genius — 
namely,  its  strict  adherence  to  logical  principles  and 
its  assiduity  in  lopping  away  all  such  superfluities 
and  inconsistencies  as  might  hamper  the  expression 
of  such  principles — this  characteristic,  so  obvious  in 
its  effects  all  through  Greek  literature  and  Greek 
art,  is  particularly  obvious  in  Greek  architecture. 
The  supreme  achievement  of  this  architecture,  to 
the  perfecting  of  which  centuries  of  careful  thought 
and  calculation  had  been  devoted,  was  the  Doric 
temple,  and  the  Doric  temple  was  an  exempHfica- 
tion  of  the  resources  of  a  single  primary  structural 
principle,  the  principle  of  the  post  and  lintel,  or 
upright  pillars  supporting  transverse  blocks.  This  is 
the  simplest,  the  oldest  and  the  most  universal  of  all 
building  principles,  but  yet  the  latent  logic  in  it 
had  never  been  developed  into  full  expression  prior 
to  the  evolution  of  the  Doric  style.  As  has  already 
been  pointed  out,  far  from  exhibiting  this  prin- 
ciple to  advantage,  the  sausage-shaped  columns  and 
squat,  ponderous  entablatures  of  the  Nile  temples 
do  but  hamper  and  conceal  it,  for  it  is  impossible 
to  form  the  least  idea  of  the  carrying  power  of  such 
columns  as  these,  columns  which  terminate  in  a 
suddenly  reduced  and  rounded  base  at  one  end,  and 
in  an   immense,  corpulent  bud   or   flower-shaped 

127 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

capital  at  the  other  ;  nor  is  it  possible  to  conjecture 
the  proportionate  dimensions  of  the  weight  the 
columns  carry  disguised  under  the  coarse  and 
shapeless  forms  which  compose  the  entablature. 
Thousands  of  years  of  practice  and  repetition  had 
left  the  lintel  principle  entirely  inarticulate  in 
Egyptian  hands.  It  lay  hid  somewhere  under  a 
redundant  mass  of  superfluous  stone,  which  it  was 
essential  to  remove  if  the  principle  itself  were  to 
be  brought  to  light. 

This  operation  was  undertaken  by  the  Greeks. 
Exactly  defined,  every  outline  as  sharp  as  if  cut  out 
of  crystal,  every  ounce  of  superfluous  material  pared 
away,  every  form  in  the  structure  expressly  adapted 
to  its  proper  function,  the  Greek  temple  exhibits 
the  greatest  of  all  structural  principles  to  the  utmost 
possible  advantage.  The  sense  of  relative  propor- 
tion between  support  and  burden  which  is  veiled  in 
the  Egyptian  temple  under  the  gross  and  inappro- 
priate shapes  of  the  forms  employed,  is  developed 
in  the  Greek  with  exquisite  refinement.  The  column, 
with  sharp-edged  flutes  and  elastic  outline,  is  the 
very  embodiment  of  the  idea  of  easy  and  powerful 
support,  while  the  crisply  defined  entablature  is  so 
proportioned  as  to  employ  and  justify  all  the  strength 
of  the  column  without  for  a  moment  oppressing  it. 
It  is  quite  evident  that  the  Greeks  have  here  grasped 
the  principle  they  arc  dealing  with,  not  as  a  fact 
merely,  but  as  an  idea.  They  do  not,  I  mean, 
stick,  where  the  Egyptians  stuck,  at  the  mere  con- 
venience of  a  certain  means  of  support,  but  go  on  to 
exhibit  the  effectiveness  and  the  logical  sufficiency 
of  this  means  of  support,  dwelling  on  it  for  its  own 
128 


LAST  OF  CLASSIC  ARCHITECTURE 

sake  and  drawing  out  all  the  expressiveness  latent 
in  it.  In  this  way  they  have  made  themselves  the 
spokesmen  of  a  natural  idea  and  are  at  the  head  of 
a  main  body  of  architectural  work  that  goes  back 
through  the  ages.  All  that  made  the  action  of  the 
builders  of  Stonehenge  right  and  reasonable  when 
they  crossed  their  huge  monoliths,  all  that  makes 
the  action  of  any  farm-hand  to-day  right  and 
reasonable  when  he  knocks  up  a  cowshed  in  the 
corner  of  a  field — in  short,  all  there  is  eternally 
logical  in  the  post  and  lintel  principle  of  construc- 
tion the  Doric  temple  utters  once  for  all  with 
supreme  felicity. 

Such  was  the  characteristically  logical  action  of 
the  Greeks  in  the  sphere  of  trabeated  or  lintel 
architecture.  Let  us  come  down  now  to  the  next 
age  and  to  the  introduction  of  a  new  principle,  new 
at  least  in  the  dominating  position  assigned  to  it  in 
the  architecture  it  appeared  in.  A  people  of  drains, 
of  bridges,  of  aqueducts,  the  arch  suited  admirably 
the  utilitarian  instincts  of  the  Romans.  But  yet, 
though  they  made  this  feature  their  own  and  spread 
it  through  the  Empire,  the  Romans  never  developed 
its  full  possibilities  or  appreciated  it  as  a  principle 
at  all.  The  large  and  harmonious  results  and  con- 
sequent aesthetic  significance  which  a  great  structural 
motive,  loyally  adhered  to  and  permitted  to  develop 
its  own  nature,  might  achieve,  were  never  grasped 
by  them  or  understood  For  the  purposes  of  con- 
struction they  for  the  most  part  used  the  arch,  but 
they  used  it  without  freedom  and  without  com- 
pleteness ;  while  for  the  addition  of  aesthetic 
significance  they  had  recourse,  without  in  the  least 

1  129 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
comprehending  its  real  value,  to  that  earlier  and 
simpler  principle  of  which  the  Greek  treatment  had 
so  enormously  enhanced  the  prestige.  But  these 
two  principles,  the  arch  and  the  lintel,  are,  as  it  is 
scarcely  necessary  to  point  out,  incompatible  with 
and  destructive  of  each  other.  They  do  their  work 
in  different  ways,  the  one  by  diffusing  and  spreading 
the  pressure  of  the  superincumbent  weight,  the 
other  by  meeting  it  direct ;  and  no  combination 
between  them  is  therefore  possible.  None  the  less, 
in  Roman  work  they  are  constantly  combined,  or 
rather  they  are  constantly  employed  in  the  same 
buildings  to  each  other's  mutual  discomfiture.  The 
arch  and  vault  usually  do  the  real  supporting, 
and  columns  and  entablatures  are  lacquered  over 
the  fagade  as  an  afterthought  to  supply  the  artistic 
finish. 

The  effect  of  this  unnatural  coalition  was  to  turn 
lintel  construction  into  a  mere  unmeaning  decorative 
detail,  and  to  stunt  and  thwart  the  development 
of  arched  construction  altogether.  It  is  with  the 
second  of  these  effects  that  we  are  here  concerned. 
It  is  not,  perhaps,  sufficiently  realised  by  the  large 
number  of  people  who  conceive  of  Roman  architec- 
ture as  the  great  opportunity  of  arched  construction, 
how  essentially  second  rate  all  Roman  arched 
construction  is.  *  Roman  architecture  daunts  us  by 
sheer  size  and  strength,  by  the  endurance  of  its  iron 
concrete  and  the  insolent  display  of  its  brilliant  and 
showy  decoration  ;  and  seeing  that  it  stands  for 
Rome's  might,  majesty  and  dominion,  we  are  apt  to 
forget  that  it  stands  no  less  incontestably  for  Rome's 
lack  of  lucidity  and  logic,  for  Rome's  dullness  of 

130 


LAST  OF  CLASSIC  ARCHITECTURE 
fnward  vision  and  vulgarity  of  soul.  The  truth  is, 
of  all  this  tremendous  architectural  accumulation 
there  is  not  a  building  extant  which  can  be  called  a 
genuine  architectural  success ;  for  by  a  genuine 
architectural  success  we  imply,  I  suppose,  the 
working  out  of  some  great  structural  motive  or 
principle  in  such  a  way,  so  completely  and  freely 
and  disinterestedly,  that  so  long  as  the  principle 
itself  applies  to  the  affairs  of  men,  this  building  in 
which  its  properties  are  exhibited  to  such  advantage 
shall,  for  its  idea's  sake,  be  welcome  and  acceptable 
also.  Rome  had  a  great  principle  to  go  on,  but  to 
express  it  freely  and  disinterestedly  was  beyond  her. 
The  heavy  Roman  vaults  and  domes,  wrought  in 
solid  masses  of  concrete  stuck  on  like  the  lid  of  a 
saucepan,  offer  no  illustration  of  the  capabilities  of 
the  arch  principle.  That  principle  was  indeed  used 
by  the  Romans  exactly  as  the  lintel  principle  had 
been  used  by  the  Egyptians.  It  was  used,  I  mean, 
in  a  purely  utilitarian  sense,  as  a  convenience  in 
building,  but  nothing  more.  The  Roman  arch  is  a 
useful  enough  method  of  support.  The  Roman 
vault  and  dome  are  convenient  enough  ways  of 
roofing  a  passage  here  or  a  hall  there.  But  their 
application  is  always  local  and  finite,  nor  was  it 
ever  suspected  by  the  Roman  genius  that  the  play 
of  forces  contained  in  the  arch  could  be  driven 
through  an  entire  structure,  controlling,  animating 
and  harmonising  the  whole  of  it. 

Nevertheless  upon  her  own  limited  interpretation 
of  the  principle  Rome  insisted.  Obstinate,  callous, 
implacable,  she  set  a  fashion  by  sheer  physical 
weight.    The  centre  and  driving-wheel  of  the  whole 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
vast  political  machine,  every  provincial  town  to  the 
uttermost  limits  of  the  Empire  turned  submissive 
eyes  to  Rome.  The  great  Roman  roads,  architec- 
tural works  themselves  of  the  first  importance, 
driven  from  town  to  town,  composed  the  meshes  of 
a  net  which  held  the  whole  empire  in  a  state  of 
political  thraldom.  But  the  thraldom  was  more 
than  political.  The  subordinate  and  distant  towns, 
as  they  derived  all  authority  and  importance,  all 
their  ideas  of  government  and  of  justice,  their 
governors  and  officials,  their  hopes  of  privileges  and 
preferments  from  the  metropolis,  so,  with  an  equal 
meekness,  they  adopted  those  fashions  in  art  and 
especially  in  architecture  which,  if  they  expressed 
nothing  else,  expressed  at  least  Rome's  ponderous 
ascendancy.  The  theatres  and  ampitheatres,  the 
villas  and  palaces,  the  triumphal  arches  and  great 
public  baths  which  profusely  decorated  the  capital, 
decorated  also,  if  more  sparingly,  the  provinces. 
They  were  all  formed  on  Roman  models  and 
accepted  the  limitations  of  Roman  taste.  It  is  true 
indeed,  and  it  is  curious  and  interesting  to  notice  it, 
that  throughout  the  towns  of  the  eastern  part  of  the 
Empire,  among  the  population  of  which  were 
scattered,  it  will  be  remembered,  a  fair  sprinkling  of 
Greek  inhabitants,  there  was  early  evinced  a  disposi- 
tion to  distinguish  between  and  disentangle  the 
structural  principles  which  Rome  had  forced  into 
conjunction.  The  properties  of  the  arch  were  not 
developed,  but  there  was  a  tendency  to  clear  away 
the  relics  of  lintel  construction  which  had  so  long 
obstructed  it,  and  thus  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a 
more  free  and  reasonable  design.  These  signs  were, 
132 


LAST  OF  CLASSIC  ARCHITECTURE 

however,  slight  and  without  decisive  result.  So 
long  as  Rome's  undisputed  sway  held,  the  style  of 
building  she  had  imposed,  though  subjected  to 
various  modifications,  held  too. 

Nor,  indeed,  did  the  division  of  the  Empire  and 
the  founding  of  a  new  capital  on  the  shores  of  the 
Bosphorus  produce  any  immediate  change.  Con- 
stantine's  great  city,  magnificent  and  luxurious  as 
it  was,  was  magnificent  and  luxurious  in  the  Roman 
way.  The  slopes  of  what  is  now  Seraglio  Point 
were  studded  with  palaces,  beyond  which  rose  the 
Acropolis  with  its  Forum  Augusteum,  the  royal 
palace  facing  the  sea,  and  west  of  this  the  Hippo- 
drome. The  baths  and  theatres,  the  porticoes  and 
terraces  of  marble  steps  reproduced  the  luxury  and 
the  fashions  of  Rome.  It  must  be  remembered, 
further,  that  the  Emperor's  change  of  faith  implied 
no  violent  breach  with  ancient  usage.  '^Constan- 
tine's  city,"  as  Mr.  Lethaby  points  out,  "  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  so  completely  Christian  as  the 
ecclesiastical  writers  would  have  us  suppose,"  and 
in  justification  of  this  surmise  he  quotes  the  report 
of  Zosimus  that  Constantine  erected  a  shrine  to 
the  Dioscuri  in  the  Hippodrome,  and  that  various 
other  temples  dedicated  to  pagan  divinities  existed, 

"  A  whole  population  of  bronze  and  marble  statues 
was  brought  together  from  Greece,  Asia  Minor  and 
Sicily.  The  baths  of  Zeuxippus  alone  are  said  to 
have  had  more  than  sixty  bronze  statues  ;  a  still 
greater  number  were  assembled  in  the  Augusteum 
and  other  squares,  and  in  the  Hippodrome,  where, 
according    to    Zosimus,    Constantine    placed    the 

133 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

Pythian  tripod  which  had  been  the  central  object 
in  the  Temple  of  Apollo  at  Delphi." 

Classic  associations  and  traditions  were,  in  short, 
transplanted  in  full  vigour  to  the  new  capital. 
Justinian  himself  was  a  typical  Imperial  ruler,  with 
all  the  Imperial  passion  for  pomp  and  display. 
His  own  colossal  statue  in  bronze  graced  the  Hip- 
podrome ;  the  baths  he  had  given  to  the  city  were 
among  its  most  splendid  adornments,  and  every 
city  in  his  dominion  was  enriched  during  his  reign 
with  important  architectural  additions.  A  second 
Augustus,  intensely  proud  of  his  office  and  con- 
scious of  its  transmitted  majesty,  nothing  could 
have  been  more  utterly  removed  from  his  thoughts 
than  the  idea  of  a  breach  of  any  kind  with  the 
spirit  of  classic  Imperialism.  Nor  was  there  in 
popular  life  any  tendency  to  such  a  breach.  Thanks 
to  the  essentially  tolerant  nature  of  paganism,  the 
new  religion  came  in,  on  the  whole,  quietly  and 
amicably.  It  entered  forthwith  into  an  inheritance 
of  artistic  and  architectural  remains,  as  vast  in 
extent  as  they  were  doubtful  in  quality,  which  it 
proceeded  to  turn  to  its  own  uses  and  requirements, 
nor,  on  the  part  of  the  people  any  more  than  on 
that  of  the  Emperor,  was  there  any  desire  to 
repudiate  the  ideas  and  arts  of  their  forefathers. 

Bearing  these  facts  in  mind,  we  shall  the  better 
understand  the  problem  set  before  the  architects 
of  Santa  Sophia  by  the  Emperor.  There  was  no 
question  of  disowning  the  past  or  breaking  violently 
with  an  ancient  tradition.  Rome's  example  was 
still  held  in  affection  and  respect.    And  yet  that 


LAST  OF  CLASSIC  ARCHITECTURE 

example  could  not  have  quite  the  same  weight  on 
the  shores  of  the  Euxine  that  it  had  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tiber.  Not  only  was  the  new  capital 
remote  from  the  centre  of  the  Roman  Classical 
influence,  but  it  was  situated  in  the  midst  of  the 
Hellenistic  influence,  in  a  part  of  the  Empire  where 
Greek  ideas  were  dominant.  It  has  been  pointed 
out  already  that  in  the  Near  East,  and  especially 
was  this  the  case  in  Syria,  Greek  taste  had  acted  on 
Roman  principles  of  construction  in  such  a  way  as, 
tentatively  at  least,  to  purify  and  simplify  them. 
In  Constantinople,  built  on  the  site  of  a  Greek 
colony  and  itself  mainly  Greek  in  thought  and 
culture,  the  Greek  genius  for  the  first  time  was  in 
a  position  to  give  these  tentative  suggestions  free 
utterance.  An  opportunity  was  thus  offered  for  a 
formal  criticism,  never  till  now  possible,  by  the 
Greek  genius  upon  Roman  architecture. 

Whether  there  had  been  earlier  indications  what 
that  criticism  was  to  be,  whether  and  to  what 
extent  Santa  Sophia  had  its  heralds,  is  a  point  on 
which  critics  still  dispute.  They  have,  in  any  case, 
almost  entirely  disappeared,  and  Santa  Sophia,  the 
greatest  architectural  effort  of  its  age,  the  work 
of  Greek  architects  in  a  Greek  city,  is  the  first 
example  of  an  emancipated,  freely  spoken  Greek 
judgment  on  the  structural  ideas  of  the  Roman  era. 
Standing  at  the  close  of  that  era  it  sums  up  the 
problem  Rome  has  been  dealing  with  and  pro- 
pounds its  own  solution. 

What  that  solution  was  a  glance  at  the  great  church 
itself  is  sufficient  to  indicate.  The  plan  of  Santa 
Sophia  is  approximately  a  square  of  250  feet  by  225, 

i35 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
of  which  the  central  portion,  io6  feet  by  200,  is 
open  from  the  floor  to  the  roof.  The  noble  sense 
of  spaciousness,  which  is  the  prevailing  impression 
here  present,  is,  however,  attained  not  merely  by 
the  amplitude  of  the  proportions  but  by  the 
rhythmical  sequence  and  evolution  of  the  great 
unfolding  curves  of  the  vaulting.  These  rise  in 
degrees  of  small  supporting  domes,  semi-domes 
and  segments  of  domes,  until  they  culminate  in  the 
'*  deep-bosomed  "  central  dome,  as  Procopius  calls 
it,  of  107  feet  span,  which  sweeps  with  incompar- 
able boldness  and  freedom  across  the  central  area 
of  the  building.  All  who  have  ever  visited  the 
church  have  been  struck  by  the  majesty  and  har- 
mony of  these  mounting  curves,  and  have  echoed 
Procopius's  own  account  of  their  appearance. 
"  From  the  lightness  of  the  building,  the  dome  does 
not  appear  to  rest  upon  a  solid  foundation,  but  to 
cover  the  place  beneath  as  though  it  were  suspended 
from  heaven  by  the  fabled  golden  chain."  And  he 
adds,  with  reference  to  the  general  structure  :  "All 
these  parts,  surprisingly  joined  to  one  another  in  the 
air,  suspended  one  from  another,  and  resting  only 
on  that  which  is  next  to  them,  form  the  work  into 
one  admirably  harmonious  whole."  Such,  indeed, 
is  the  aspect  of  the  place.  Many  years  have  passed 
since  I  stood  myself  under  those  clustering  cavities, 
but  yet  their  appearance  is  as  present  to  my  eye 
now  as  at  that  moment ;  so  clear  and  unmistakable, 
so  unhampered  by  irrelevancies  and  unobscured  by 
conflicting  elements,  is  the  structural  principle  they 
enforce. 

That  structural  principle,  I  need  hardly  say,  is 
136 


LAST  OF  CLASSIC  ARCHITECTURE 

the  principle  of  the  arch,  including  under  that 
definition  the  vault  and  dome,  which  are  merely 
logical  developments  of  the  arch  principle.  Of 
the  completeness  and  mathematical  precision  with 
which  that  motive  is  carried  out  through  every  part 
of  the  building  it  would  be  impossible  without 
diagrams  to  give  an  adequate  idea.  M.  Choisy,  in 
his  already  authoritative  work,  "  I'Art  de  Batir  chez 
les  Byzantins,"  has  devoted  a  volume  to  the  subject, 
with  results  which  will  surprise  no  one  who  has 
learnt  to  appreciate  the  entire  devotion  of  the 
Greeks  to  the  idea  they  are  enforcing.  One  expe- 
dient of  primary  importance  in  domical  construction, 
and  now  for  the  first  time  fully  developed,  may  be 
instanced  as  illustrative  of  the  building's  character. 
It  will  easily  be  understood  that  a  circle  super- 
imposed upon  a  square  in  such  a  way  that  the  rim 
of  the  circle  rests  upon  the  edge  of  each  of  the  four 
sides  of  the  square  must  leave  at  each  of  the  angles 
a  large  segment  of  the  circle  unsupported.  The 
problem  how  to  fill  in  this  gap,  or  how,  in  other 
words,  to  adapt  a  square  foundation  to  a  circular 
superstructure,  had  never  hitherto  been  satisfac- 
torily solved.  It  had,  indeed,  constituted  a  recog- 
nised difficulty  and  stumbling-block  in  that  kind  of 
construction,  which  had  in  various  ways  been 
slurred  over,  but  had  never  been  fairly  met.  The 
architects  of  Santa  Sophia  met  it  by  applying 
segments  of  domical  vaulting  to  the  unsupported 
angles,  built  outwards  from  each  corner  of  the 
square  below,  and  expanding  as  they  rise  until  their 
upper  edge  attains  the  lower  rim  of  the  dome. 
These  segments  not  only  fill  in  the  gap  and  afford 

137 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

a  proper  toundation  for  the  dome  to  rest  on,  collect- 
ing the  thrust  of  it  at  the  angles  immediately  above 
the  great  supporting  piers,  but  they  are  in  them- 
selves a  perfectly  logical  application  of  the  domical 
theory,  and  their  expanding,  mounting  curves  are 
in  harmony  with  the  scheme  of  the  whole  interior. 
It  is  probable  that  the  name  of  Anthemius  will 
always  be  primarily  associated  with  the  use  of  this 
mode  of  construction  ;  nevertheless,  as  they  occur 
in  the  building,  these  "  pendentives,"  as  they  are 
called,  so  belong  to  the  whole  that  they  might 
almost  be  said  to  be  the  invention  of  the  building 
itself. 

The  absorption  of  the  whole  interior  of  Santa 
Sophia  in  this  play  of  curves  which  compose  it 
remains  its  dominant  characteristic,  and  is  compar- 
able to  the  system  of  thrust  and  counter-thrust 
which  pervades  the  whole  of  a  Gothic  cathedral  and 
maintains  its  equilibrium.  There  is,  however,  one 
important  difference  which  is  in  favour  of  the 
older  building.  The  Gothic  theory,  while  it  equally 
inspires  every  part  and  portion  of  the  edifice,  does 
not  and  cannot  result  in  structural  unity.  Each 
member  of  the  cathedral — the  nave,  the  transepts, 
the  choir,  the  chapels  and  chapter-houses  and 
baptisteries — is  structurally  complete  in  itself  and 
does  not  form  part  of  an  organic  whole.  The 
cathedral,  in  fact,  is  logically  not  one  building  but 
a  conglomeration  of  many  buildings,  the  number 
of  which  may  be  and  often  has  been  increased  or 
reduced  without  affecting  the  general  result.  The 
dome  in  this  respect  has  advantages  denied  to  the 
pointed  arch.    The  great  concave  that  broods  over 

138 


I  fear  this  gives  but  a  fai?it  notion  of  the  sequence  of  curves  which 
makes  S.  Sophia  the  supreme  example  of  the  arch  principle 

INTERIOR  OF  S.  SOPHIA  A  138 


LAST  OP  CLASSIC  ARCHITECTURE 

the  centre  of  Santa  Sophia  strikes  the  note  of  unity 
of  the  whole  building  ;  it  draws  together  every  part 
of  the  structure  into  its  own  service.  The  whole 
system  of  domes  and  semi-domes  combines  to 
uphold  it.  The  columns  and  piers  group  them- 
selves in  obedience  to  its  requirements.  Lifted 
high  over  the  building,  it  is  to  be  taken  as  the  final 
expression  of  the  thought  which  animates  every 
part  and  portion  of  it,  a  thought  which  every  line 
and  curve  in  the  structure  prepares  the  way  for 
and  unites  in  corroborating. 

Now,  if  the  reader  will  turn  his  attention  to  the 
Roman  method  of  treating  the  arch  principle,  and 
contrast  it  with  the  method  employed  in  Santa 
Sophia,  he  will  appreciate  the  significance  of  Greek 
criticism.  Many  Roman  buildings  contained  all 
the  characteristic  structural  features  of  Santa  Sophia. 
The  vault  was  used,  the  apse  was  used,  the  dome 
was  used,  the  arch  was  used.  But  in  Roman  hands 
each  of  these  features  is  a  thing  distinct  in  itself, 
finite,  with  its  own  immediate  purpose,  but  ignorant 
of  the  very  existence  of  its  fellows,  and  indeed  more 
often  than  not  ignorant  of  its  own  nature,  for  Roman 
vaults  and  domes  are  usually  mere  blocks  of  concrete, 
not  true  arched  constructions  at  all.  Naturally,  as 
we  have  seen,  Rome's  ignorance  of  the  nature  of 
her  own  structural  principle  encouraged  her  to 
combine  and  confuse  it  with  a  principle  of  a  con- 
flicting character.  This  is  the  state  of  chaos  cor- 
rected by  Santa  Sophia.  Santa  Sophia  seizes  upon 
the  thought  which  really  does  lie  at  the  bottom  of 
all  that  loaded  and  incongruous  matter,  and  stripping 
away  irrelevancies  and  granting  it  for  the  first  time 

139 


THE  WORKS  OP  MAN 
free  play,  brings  out  at  last  its  power  and  beauty. 
The  thwarted  hope,  the  foiled  career,  the 

''  All  1  could  never  be 
All  men  ignored  in  me  " 

of  the  Roman  arch  finds  expression  in  the  Greek. 
And  what  I  hope  the  reader  will  remark  is  that,  in 
thus  drawing  out  the  significance  of  this  principle, 
the  ^  Greek  architects  of  the  new  church  were  but 
acting  after  the  manner  of  their  race.  They  were 
but  doing  for  the  Roman  arch  exactly  what  their 
forefathers  had  done  for  the  Egyptian  lintel,  strip- 
ping from  it  the  superfluous  matter  which  obscured 
the  thought  within,  until  the  substance  left  became, 
as  it  were,  the  incarnation  of  the  structural  principle 
on  which  they  were  working. 

There  are  traits,  I  began  by  saying,  in  architec- 
ture which  are  vital  and  which  constitute  the  style 
of  a  building,  and  others  which  are  more  or  less 
accidental  and  interchangeable  and  do  not  constitute 
style.  It  seems  to  me  that  no  disinterested  critic, 
who  has  submitted  himself  to  the  influence  of  Santa 
Sophia,  and  has  considered  its  relations  with  the 
Roman  architecture  that  led  up  to  it,  can  be  in 
much  doubt  as  to  what  the  style  in  it  consists  in.  It 
does  not  consist  in  such  decorative  additions  as  the 
use  of  mosaics  and  marble  panelling  ;  for  such 
decoration  might  all  be  stripped  from  the  church, 
as  indeed  to  a  large  extent  it  has  been,  without  in 
the  least  affecting  the  character  of  the  architecture. 
Nor  does  it  even  consist  in  the  use  of  certain 
structural  forms,  as  the  dome  and  apse  and  vault, 
though  these  of  course  are  more  essential,  for 
140 


LAST  OF  CLASSIC  ARCHITECTURE 
all  these,  as  we  have  seen,  were  used  in  many 
Roman  buildings,  and  used  even  in  conjunction 
with  marble  panelling  and  mosaics.  All  the  features, 
structural  and  decorative,  employed  in  Santa  Sophia 
had  already  often  been  combined,  and  yet  their 
combination  had  not  resulted  in  a  structure  more 
than  remotely  resembling  Santa  Sophia  in  cha- 
racter. It  is  not,  then,  these  things  that  compose 
the  style  of  the  Greek  church.  Enumerate  every 
feature  here  present,  and  you  are  no  nearer  a 
satisfactory  definition.  They  will  every  one  be 
found  in  the  baths  of  Caracalla.  But  if  from 
structural  features  you  turn  to  structural  principles  ; 
if,  instead  of  saying  that  dome,  apse  and  vault  are 
here  present,  you  say  the  whole  building  is  con- 
ceived as  an  exposition  of  the  arch  principle,  then 
indeed  you  name  that  which  really  gives  character 
and  style  to  the  church,  the  essential  trait  in  it  on  a 
participation  in  which  any  claim  to  a  real  relation- 
ship betwixt  it  and  other  buildings  must  be  based. 

But  if  this  is  indeed  the  essential  characteristic  of 
Santa  Sophia,  the  question  immediately  arises,  how 
are  we  to  reconcile  its  position  as  the  exponent  of 
arcuated  construction  with  its  position  as  the  proto- 
type of  the  Byzantine  style  ?  For  Santa  Sophia,  of 
course,  figures  in  architectural  history  not  as  the 
solution  of  the  earlier  Roman,  but  as  the  supreme 
type  of  the  later  Byzantine  architecture.  Between 
Santa  Sophia  and  Byzantine  buildings  generally  a 
most  real  and  intimate  relationship  is  claimed  ;  and 
yet  I  have  never  myself  heard  that  relationship  based 
on  the  ground  of  a  common  exposition  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  arcuated  construction  ;  nor,  indeed,  is  it 

141 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
easy  to  see,  when  one  recalls  the  general  appearance, 
the  heavy  proportions  !and  passive,  inert  weight  of 
Byzantine  interiors  generally,  how  without  palpable 
absurdity  such  a  claim  could  be  advanced.  True, 
Byzantine  uses  all  the  arch  forms,  dome,  apse  and 
vault  which  Santa  Sophia  uses,  but  it  does  not  use 
them  to  the  same  end.  Byzantine  domes  and  vaults 
are  ponderous,  low  and  solid.  The  interiors  are 
obscure  and  darkly  shadowed,  and  the  general  im- 
pression they  convey,  upheld  as  they  are  by  huge 
square  piers,  is  as  of  excavations  dug  out  by  miners 
rather  than  a  construction  of  architecture.  Nothing 
can  be  imagined  more  opposed  to  that  lightness 
of  structural  vitality  which  inspires  the  bounding 
vaults  of  Santa  Sophia  than  the  massive  solidity  and 
heaviness  of  the  later  Byzantine  structure.  More- 
over, what  seems  to  make  the  difference  the  more 
pronounced  is  that  these  later  Byzantine  interiors 
are  so  alike  in  character  that  it  is  obvious  that  they, 
too,  are  working  out  a  definite  intention,  though  not 
the  intention  of  Santa  Sophia.  The  prevalence  of 
low,  solid  curves,  dimly  lit  and  darkly  shadowed, 
gives  to  all  of  them  a  kindred  character  and  indicates 
a  common  purpose.  The  architectural  conditions 
here  present  are  certainly  very  ill  adapted  for  the 
display  of  any  structural  principles  whatever,  but 
Ihey  are  singularly  well  adapted  for  the  display  of 
an  ideal  of  another  kind.  Those  of  my  readers  who 
remember  the  dim,  rich  twilight  that  suffuses  the 
interior  of  Saint  Mark's  at  Venice  will  scarcely  require 
to  be  told  what  that  ideal  was.  The  deep  vaulting, 
wrought  apparently  out  of  soft  gold,  the  solemn 
figures  inlaid  in  its  surface,  the  deep  shadows  that 
T42 


LAST  OF  CLASSIC  ARCHITECTURE 

sometimes  disclose  the  sheen  of  the  gold  but  more 
often  wrap  it  in  a  semi-obscurity  through  which  it 
glows  fitfully  like  the  smouldering  embers  of  a  fire, 
all  these  are  conditions  which  enforce  with  extra- 
ordinary power  the  effect  of  splendour  of  colouring. 
They  are  characteristics,  moreover,  in  which  all 
Byzantine  buildings  participate,  and  they  constitute 
what  is  typical  in  the  style.  But  does  the  reader 
imagine  that  there  is  anything  whatever  in  common 
between  such  a  building  as  this  and  Santa  Sophia  ? 
There  is,  to  be  sure,  this  in  common,  that  St.  Mark 
uses  the  dome  and  the  apse  and  the  vault,  and  uses 
also  mosaics  and  marble  panelling.  These  are 
features  it  has  in  common  with  Santa  Sophia,  just 
as  Santa  Sophia  has  them  in  common  with  Cara- 
calla's  baths.  But  if  we  would  realise  how  super- 
ficial is  the  attempt  to  characterise  architecture  by 
detail  instead  of  general  intention  and  effect,  we 
could  scarcely  do  better  than  contrast  in  our  minds 
these  two  buildings  which  possess  so  many  features  in 
common,  yet  which  are  so  opposed  in  general  effect. 
So  opposed,  indeed,  are  they  that  they  address 
themselves  to  different  faculties  of  the  mind.  Santa 
Sophia,  developing  a  great  structural  principle  in 
broad  daylight  with  unexampled  logic  and  daring, 
addresses  itself  entirely  to  the  intellect.  St.  Mark's, 
sensuous  and  contemplative,  with  its  dark  splendour 
of  colouring  half  seen,  half  guessed,  in  the  rich 
obscurity  of  its  vaults,  addresses  itself  entirely  to  the 
emotions.  It  is  impossible  to  bring  two  such  build- 
ings to  terms  with  each  other  of  any  kind,  and  to 
pretend  that  they  both  belong  to  the  same  style  is 
to  deprive  the  word  style  of  any  comprehensible 

143 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
meaning.  St.  Mark's,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  carries 
out  its  own  purposes  and  develops  its  own  effects 
with  just  as  much  consistency  as  Santa  Sophia  itself. 
And  these  purposes  and  effects  are  the  purposes 
and  effects  of  the  Byzantine  style  generally.  They 
are  reproduced  in  countless  buildings  throughout 
Eastern  Europe,  and  more  sparingly  throughout  Italy 
and  Sicily,  their  appearance  keeping  pace  with  the 
spread  and  prevalence  of  Greek  immigrants.  But 
by  all  that  draws  them  together  they  are  separated 
from  Santa  Sophia.  The  gulf  between  them  is 
the  gulf  between  reason  and  emotion  in  human 
character  and  between  form  and  colour  in  art. 

To  conclude  then,  what  I  would  suggest  to  the 
reader  as  the  really  significant  quality  in  Santa 
Sophia  is  the  exposition  it  gives  of  the  nature  of  the 
arch  as  a  structural  principle.  This  is  the  "  essential 
trait"  in  it,  that  which  represents  the  intention  of 
the  architect  and  gives  style  to  his  work,  and  in 
comparison  with  this  all  other  features  are  of 
superficial  and  negligible  importance.  In  this,  too, 
it  seems  to  me,  lies  the  building's  chief  source  of 
historical  and  human  interest,  since  in  this  respect 
•it  stands  for  the  emergence,  after  long  eclipse,  of 
the  Greek  genius  in  its  familiar  rdle  of  expounder  of 
the  principles  of  art  in  vogue  in  the  world.  This, 
surely,  is  importance  and  significance  sufficient  for 
any  one  building.  Only  if  we  interpret  it  in  this  sense, 
we  must  relinquish  its  claim  to  be  the  prototype  of 
the  Byzantine  style. '  For  this  is  ground  Byzan- 
tine cannot  share  with  it.  When  Fergusson,  after 
describing  the  perfect  logic  of  the  new  church's 
domical  construction,  concludes  that,  in  its  own 


LAST  OF  CLASSIC  ARCHITECTURE 
method  of  construction,  "Santa  Sophia  seems  to 
stand  alone,"  he  makes  a  statement  there  is  no 
quaHfying  or  disputing  at  all.  In  its  logical  de- 
velopment of  the  arch  principle  the  church  certainly 
does  stand  alone,  for  on  these  lines  Byzantine 
buildings  not  only  do  not  rival  but  do  not  compete 
with  it. 

Let  the  reader,  then,  choose.  If  he  accepts  a 
catalogue  of  structural  and  decorative  features  as 
embodying  the  character  or  style  of  Santa  Sophia, 
he  will  indeed  be  able  to  establish  a  relationship 
indifferently  between  it  and  Roman,  Byzantine,  oi 
even  Persian  and  Moorish  architecture;  but  it  will 
be  a  relationship  of  superficialities  which  will  tend 
to  obscure  the  real  significance  and  human  interest 
of  architecture  and  reduce  it  to  a  study  and  com- 
parison of  mere  technical  details.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  he  accepts  the  arch  principle  as  the  keynote 
of  Santa  Sophia  and  reads  the  building  as  the  Greek 
comment  on  Roman  Imperial  architecture,  he  will 
be  helped  to  certain  clear  and  simple  definitions. 
Henceforth  Roman  architecture  will  appear  as  a 
prolonged  struggle  between  two  irreconcilable 
principles,  the  arch  and  lintel ;  while  Santa  Sophia 
will  stand  for  the  deliverance  of  the  arch  principle 
from  the  clutches  of  its  enemy  and  the  final  exhibi- 
tion of  its  full  power  and  beauty.  It  will  be  the  last 
word  in  a  long  controversy.  For  long  Roman 
methods  and  the  Roman  Imperialism  had  dominated 
art,  and  under  that  dominion  the  old  clear-thoughted 
loyalty  to  definite  ideas  and  fixed  principles  had 
given  place  to  a  jumble  of  antagonistic  statements. 
The  Greek  influence  in  these  latter  pagan  centuries 

K  145 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

seemed  extinct.  And  yet,  at  the  closing  of  that 
epoch,  a  final  opportunity  was  granted  it  to  which 
it  still  had  power  to  respond.  I  am  not  sure  that, 
coming  as  it  does  after  so  long  a  decadence,  the 
purity  of  Santa  Sophia  and  its  perfect  intellectual 
lucidity  are  not  a  higher  testimony  to  the  essential 
qualities  of  the  Greek  genius  and  temperament  than 
even  the  Doric  masterpieces  of  the  race's  prime. 
At  any  rate  I  know  no  better  way  of  realising  what 
the  secret,  potent  Greek  influence  consisted  in  than 
by  turning  first  to  the  stuttering  and  stammering  of 
Roman  architecture,  and  then  to  the  same  thought 
uttered  in  the  clear,  bell-like  speech  of  Santa 
Sophia, 


146 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE* 

Arab  architecture  as  a  presentment  of  Arab  character  :  Living 
qualities  of  the  race  :  Its  terrific  energy  combined  with  fickle- 
ness and  instability  :  All  Arab  enterprise  to  this  day 
marked  by  same  combination  :  Arab  war  :  Arab  science  and 
scholarship  and  civilisation  generally  :  Their  rapid  but  cva- 
nescent  achievements  :  Testimony  of  their  buildings  :  Their 
hatred  of  all  steadfast  and  stable  forms  :  Fate  of  the  round 
arch  in  their  hands  :  Their  destructive  impulse  :  Their 
inability  to  construct  :  Their  tendency  to  the  fantastic  and 
whimsical  ;  The  structural  forms  of  Arab  buildings  are  the 
racial  traits  in  their  living  image 

ARAB  architecture  is  the  best  presentment  of  Arab 
character  that  remains  to  us.  No  historical  evidence 
can  furnish  forth  to  the  understanding  a  likeness  of 
the  man  so  expressive  as  this  architecture  offers  to 
the  eye.  Yet  its  significance  is  apt  to  be  overlooked, 
and  overlooked  usually  for  the  same  reason.  Between 
almost  all  the  books  dealing  wholly  or  in  part  with 
Arab  and  Moorish  art  which  have  passed  through 
my  hands  during  the  lastjyear,  there  exists,  under  all 
differences  of  treatment  and  style,  one  fundamental 
resemblance.  They  almost  all  regard  Arab  archi- 
tecture from  the  same,  namely,  from  .he  romantic, 
standpoint.  They  almost  all,  that  is  to  say,  treat 
it  not  as  a  subject  possessing  a  definite  meaning,  and 

*  I  have  treated  this  subject  more  fully  in  my  book,  "  In 
the  Desert." 

M7 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
Capable  of  rational  explanation,  but  as  an  opportunity 
for  exercising  those  sentimental  and  poetic  feelings 
in  which  it  is  always  so  pleasant  to  indulge.  The 
Arab  himself,  more  than  any  figure  in  all  history,  is 
steeped  in  romance  and  sentiment,  and  his  curious 
fantastic  architecture,  embodying  as  it  does  the  same 
quaUties,  addresses  itself  naturally  to  the  sentimental 
faculties  in  each  one  of  us.  Its  fascinating  associa- 
tions, its  strange  and  unfamiliar  aspect,  its  forlornness 
and  desolation,  its  gardens,  nightingales  and  orange 
blossoms,  incite  us  perpetually  to  poetry  and  tears. 
"  Ah,  I  forgot  the  city,"  cries  Mr.  Hutton  on  entering 
the  Mosque  at  Cordova,  **  I  forgot  the  desolation,  I 
forgot  the  dust  that  seems  to  have  crumbled  from 
innumerable  desolations  as  I  wandered  in  that  holy 
and  secret  place  ;  I  lost  myself  in  a  new  contem- 
plation;  I  kissed  the  old  voluptuous  marbles,  I 
touched  the  strange  precious  inscriptions,  and  with 
my  finger  I  traced  the  name  of  God." 

This  is  the  temper,  romantic  rather  than  rational, 
in  which  the  examination  of  Arab  architecture  is 
usually  conducted,  and  what  I  wish  to  point  out 
is  that,  however  effective  the  result  may  be  from  the 
literary  point  of  view,  such  a  treatment  ignores 
altogether  one  very  powerful  source  of  interest  which 
Arab  architecture  possesses ;  the  interest,  I  mean, 
which  belongs  to  it  as  an  interpretation,  quite  literal, 
exact  and  reliable,  of  Arab  character.  In  its  eager 
inventiveness,  in  the  capricious  changes,  complica- 
tions and  inflections  of  its  designs,  in  its  impulsive 
energy,  and  above  all  in  its  inherent  weakness  and 
instability,  there  is  depicted  in  this  style,  if  we  would 
but  coolly  and  rationally  examine  it,  a  visible  repre- 
148 


THE  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE 

sentation  of  the  Arab  as  we  know  him  in  history,  or 
as  he  is  to  be  met  with  to-day  in  the  flesh  in  those 
deserts  to  which  the  progress  of  more  stable  races 
has  once  again  relegated  him.  The  stamp  and  impress 
taken  of  him  by  these  eccentric  arches  and  purpose- 
less entanglements  of  tracery  are  the  stamp  and 
impress  which  he  gave  to  all  his  undertakings.  His 
impetuous  yet  ill-sustained  campaigns  have  this 
character  ;  his  so-called  civilisation,  so  imposing  yet 
so  fugitive,  has  it ;  all  his  scientific  and  intellectual 
achievements,  informed  with  vague  visions  and  trans- 
cendental guesses,  have  it ;  above  all  the  man  him- 
self, full  of  fiery,  short-lived  and  contradictory 
impulses,  is  the  incarnation  of  it. 

Let  us  specify,  if  we  can,  the  living  characteristics 
of  the  race  before  we  attempt  to  trace  its  likeness  in 
stone.  They  should  not  be  difficult  to  seize.  From 
the  moment  of  the  Arab's  first  appearance  on  the 
world's  stage  we  are  conscious  of  a  new  force  acting 
on  human  affairs.  The  old  stock  of  warring  ideals 
which  throughout  the  East  and  West,  among  the 
attackers  and  defenders  of  classicalism,  had  given 
rise  to  fluctuations  of  regular  recurrence  and  similar 
character,  was  with  the  coming  of  the  Arab  suddenly 
modified  by  the  addition  of  a  hitherto  unknown 
ingredient,  the  effect  of  which  was  instantaneous 
As  a  dash  of  petroleum  stimulates  an  unwilling  fire, 
so  the  Arab  ardour  fanned  to  a  blaze  the  general 
conflagration  which  was  consuming  the  old  order  of 
things.  Destruction,  the  clearing  of  the  ground  for 
a  new  growth,  seems  to  have  been  the  main  purpose 
of  that  age,  and  as  a  destructive  agent  the  Arab  was 
without  a  peer.     That   terrific    energy  of   his,  so 

149 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

furiously  rapid  in  its  progress,  so  irresistible  in  its 
attack,  so  blasting  in  its  effects,  is  comparable  only 
to  the  light  and  glancing  motions  of  tongues  of  flame. 
But  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  Arab  energy  is  like 
fire  swift  and  irresistible,  it  is  like  fire  fickle.  In  all 
affairs  of  whatever  kind  in  which  the  Arab  has  been 
concerned,  fickleness  equally  with  energy  plays  its 
part.  One  is  constantly  reminded,  in  dealing  with 
him,  or  noting  his  behaviour  in  history,  of  the  lack  in 
him  of  that  faculty  of  solid  reason  which  lends  such 
unmistakable  coherence  and  continuity  to  the  designs 
of  the  Western  nations.  In  manners  and  customs,  in 
likes  and  dislikes,  in  all  he  does  and  leaves  undone, 
in  his  very  mien  and  gait,  in  the  glance  of  his  eye  and 
the  tone  of  his  voice,  the  fact  that  the  Arab  is  governed 
by  passion  rather  than  by  reason  is  unmistakably 
revealed.  In  ordinary  intercourse  this  emotional 
tendency  lends  to  his  actions  something  incalculable 
and  unexpected,  since  it  is  impossible  to  foresee 
what  his  conduct  will  be  under  any  given  circum- 
stances, or  what  whim  or  sudden  impulse  may  divert 
his  course  or  hurry  him  in  a  moment  from  one  point  of 
view  to  another.  Hence  that  agreement  and  co-ope- 
ration which  prevail  among  people  who  are  guided 
by  reason  never  are  and  never  have  been  possible 
for  any  length  of  time  among  the  Arabs,  for  where 
all  action  is  a  matter  of  sentimental  impulse  and  the 
emotion  of  the  moment,  it  is  impossible  to  guarantee 
that  any  two  men  will  judge  alike,  or  indeed  thai 
any  one  man  will  judge  to-day  as  he  judged  yester- 
day or  will  judge  to-morrow.  ■-  In  short,  emotion  as 
a  motive  power,  while  it  ensures  tremendous  energy 
and  suddenness  and  swiftness  of  action,  is  sure  to 

150 


THE  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE 
result  also  in  such  action  being  discontinuous  and 
spasmodic,  liable  to  die  out  suddenly  or  change  at  a 
moment's  notice  to  another  direction.  As  the 
reader  knows,  every  enterprise  set  on  foot  among 
the  desert  tribes  is  still  invariably  based  on  appeals 
to  passion  and  fanaticism,  rather  than  on  any  reason- 
able or  definable  policy,  and  the  resulting  outbreak 
is  always  as  short-lived  and  ill-directed  as  it  is  violent 
and  unexpected.  Its  energy  and  impotence  alike 
mark  it  as  the  effect  of  passion  rather  than  reason. 

But  the  same  characteristics  have  distinguished 
Arab  action  in  all  ages.  Their  first  furious  eruption 
was  exactly  similar  in  character  to  any  desert  rising 
of  to-day,  the  apparent  difference  existing  solely 
in  the  surroundings.  The  Arab  of  the  present,  less 
happily  circumstanced  than  the  Arab  of  the  seventh 
or  eighth  century,  has  to  encounter  in  his  adversaries 
just  that  capacity  for  combining  and  co-operating 
which  is  characteristic  of  a  civilisation  founded  on 
the  rational  faculty,  and  which  he  has  himself  always 
so  signally  lacked.  Against  an  opposition  of  this 
kind  he  is  powerless,  he  cannot  operate,  he  cuts  no 
figure  at  all ;  you  would  scarcely  take  him  for  the 
same  man  as  he  who,  with  the  world  a  darkened 
stage  prepared  for  him,  displayed  his  peculiar  talents 
upon  it  to  such  terrible  advantage  thirteen  hundred 
years  ago. 

And  yet,  apart  from  circumstances,  our  Arab 
of  thirteen  hundred  years  ago  was  the  Arab  of 
to-day.  Among  the  vague  accounts  which  have 
come  down  to  us  of  his  earliest  campaigns  we  shall 
look  in  vain  for  any  reasoned  scheme  of  operations, 
any  definable  strategy,  even  any  knowledge  of  the 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
physical  features  and  probable  powers  of  resistance 
of  the  various  countries  attacked.  All  was  guess- 
work. All  was  left  to  chance  and  the  blind  dictates 
of  a  vague  enthusiasm.  The  warlike  operations  of 
the  Arabs  in  no  way  resemble  the  tactics  of  regular 
armies.  Supplies,  transport,  equipment,  a  military 
base,  lines  of  communication,  all  these  factors  in  a 
steady  and  organised  advance  are  wanting  in  their 
evolutions.  Composed  entirely  of  cavalry  and  un- 
encumbered with  provisions  and  baggage,  the  swift- 
ness of  the  Saracen  advance  almost  baffles  observa- 
tion. The  progress  of  Kaled  through  Syria,  of  Okba 
through  Africa,  of  Tarik  through  Spain  suggests  the 
passage  of  a  whirlwind  rather  than  the  march  of 
armies.  But  the  secret  of  this  swiftness  is  to  be 
sought  not  so  much  in  the  fact  that  the  Arabs 
marched  light  and  were  all  well  mounted,  but  rather 
in  those  peculiarities  of  temperament  which  urged 
them  to  use  these  means  of  speed  with  such  furious 
ardour.  These  extraordinary  campaigns  are  en- 
livened by,  or  indeed  made  up  of,  incidents  which 
constantly  testify  to  the  emotional  and  fiery  nature 
of  the  race.  Personal  deeds  of  romantic  daring 
take  the  place  of  strategical  dispositions,  and  each 
separate  Moslem  appears  like  a  missile  loosed  from 
the  desert  and  charged  with  an  inward  momentum 
which  irresistibly  drives  him  on.  Small  wonder 
that  armies  thus  composed,  whether  heading  for  the 
Atlantic  or  the  frontiers  of  China,  should  always  be 
at  the  full  gallop. 

And,  second,  to  this  furious  energy  which  is  the 
first  trait  noticeable  in  the  Arab  attack,  there  is 
discernible  a  haunting  element  of  weakness  and 

IS* 


THE  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE 

instability.  These  eager  cavaliers  rarely  drive  their 
attack  straight  home,  but  wheel  and  hover  round 
their  perplexed  enemy  until  accident  or  ill-discipline 
opens  an  opportunity.  Formidable  as  their  elan  is, 
and  terribly  effective  as  it  proved  in  the  circum- 
stances under  which  the  Arab  invasions  were 
conducted,  we  can  easily  believe  that  Gibbon  was 
right  when  he  suggested  that  "the  Empire  of 
Trajan,  or  even  of  Constantine  or  Charlemagne, 
would  have  repelled  the  assault  of  the  naked 
Saracens,  and  the  torrent  of  fanaticism  might  have 
been  obscurely  lost  in  the  sands  of  Arabia."  It 
will  be  found,  I  think,  that  during  the  crusades  and 
the  Sicilian  and  Spanish  campaigns,  though  the 
European  forces  often  suffered  heavily  through 
their  own  rashness,  or  the  unaccustomed  conditions 
of  climate  and  country,  yet  they  seldom  failed,  even 
when  heavily  outnumbered,  to  get  the  best  of  it  in 
fair  fighting.  Twenty  to  one,  the  odds  allowed  by 
Count  Roger,  might  no  doubt  be  an  excessive  dis- 
parity ;  but  I  imagine,  when  once  the  sense  of 
nationality  had  developed  in  them,  that  a  French- 
man, a  Spaniard,  or  an  Englishman  in  a  hand-to- 
hand  struggle  was  always  worth  at  least  four  or 
five  Saracens. 

The  truth  is,  and  ultimately  Arab  history  is  a 
proof  of  it,  that  passion,  however  furious,  is  strong 
only  in  appearance.  The  qualities  that  make  an 
army  really  formidable  are  in  the  main  rational 
qualities.  What  gives  confidence  to  every  soldier 
of  a  civilised  army  is  his  certainty  that,  though  he  is 
ignorant  of  the  plan  of  operations,  yet  such  a  plan 
does  in  fact  exist  and  does  dictate  every  manoeuvre. 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

Whatever,  therefore,  the  aspect  of  affairs  in  his  own 
part  of  the  field  may  be,  his  instinct  is,  at  all  hazards, 
to  obey  orders  and  carry  out  his  own  immediate 
instructions.  It  is  this  rational  subordination  to 
rational  control  which  makes  a  civilised  force  well- 
nigh  irresistible.  Discipline,  cohesion,  tenacity,  the 
power  of  concerted  action,  these  are  the  great  quali- 
ties that  spring  from  the  rule  of  reason.  It  was  the 
lack  of  these  qualities  among  the  passion-tossed  hosts 
of  the  Arabs  which  was  to  prove  their  undoing. 
Gradually  as  the  Western  nations  emerged  out  of 
barbarism  and  achieved  the  beginnings  of  unity, 
they  put  on  the  warlike  strength  proper  to  a  reason- 
ing people  ;  and  no  sooner  did  they  begin  to  develop 
this  strength,  no  sooner  did  reason  and  intellect 
begin  to  show  themselves  in  the  discipline  and 
direction  of  armies,  than  the  Saracen  resistance 
yielded  before  them.  Decade  by  decade  the 
strength  of  Europe  increased.  Science  introduced 
a  new  and  terrible  efficiency  in  armament,  but  one 
which  cannot  logically  be  separated  from  the  men 
who  wield  it,  for  it  is  indeed  a  part  of  them,  a  part 
of  that  power  of  thinking  which  is  their  racial 
characteristic  and  which  manifested  itself  in 
ordered  ranks  and  a  logical  plan  of  campaign 
before  it  went  on  to  manifest  itself  in  magazine 
rifles  and  quick-firing  guns. 

For  these  developments,  however,  the  Arab  did 
not  wait.  The  race  maintained  its  conquests  only 
so  long  as  it  was  opposed  by  feebleness  and  con- 
fusion. In  the  East  it  was  struck  down  by  the 
Turk,  while  in  the  West  the  slow  consolidation  of 
the  Goths  drove  it  steadily  southward  and  the  final 


The  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE 
union  of  the  states  of  Castile  and  Arragon  rid  Spain 
finally  of  its  presence. 

What,  then,  we  learn  to  distinguish  as  the  chief 
characteristics  of  Arab  valour,  from  their  rapid 
conquests  and  rapid  decline,  is,  first,  an  intense 
excitability,  a  temperament  in  the  highest  degree 
nervous,  passionate  and  fiery,  expressing  itself  in 
movements  of  headlong  speed  and  furious  bursts 
of  energy ;  and,  secondly,  under  all  this  fire  and 
fury,  a  perpetual  weakness  and  lack  of  tenacity  and 
endurance,  due  to  the  lack  of  rational  cohesion  in 
them,  which  so  wrought  that  nothing  done  by  them 
was  ever  continuous  or  firmly  established,  but  that 
all  their  designs  partook  of  the  character  of  whims 
and  blind  impulses. 

But  if  this  is  a  true  reading  of  the  Arab  in  war  it 
will  be  true  of  him  in  other  things  also.  And  so  I 
think  it  is.  His  whole  civilisation  may  be  taken  as 
a  further  illustration  of  it.  If  that  civilisation  rose 
and  expanded  with  the  rapidity  of  all  Arab  designs, 
its  abrupt  and  entire  disappearance  was  not  less 
characteristic.  Has  the  reader  ever  passed  by  the 
scene  of  an  overnight's  display  of  fireworks  and 
noted  the  few  relics — a  rocket-stick  or  two,  the  core 
of  a  catharine-wheel,  a  burnt-out  cracker — which 
are  all  that  remains  of  so  brief  a  glory  ?  Such  was 
the  legacy,  as  such  had  been  the  brilliance,  of  the 
display  given  by  the  Arabs.  It  is  a  habit  at  present 
to  magnify  the  importance  of  those  odds  and  ends 
of  knowledge  which  we  have  succeeded  in  dis- 
engaging from  their  motley  accumulation  of  facts 
and  fancies.  I  need  not  here,  however,  overhaul 
the  doubtful  catalogue.     It  is  enough  to  point  out 

IS5 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

that  whatever  hints  and  suggestions  we  may  have 
utilised  or  adopted,  the  gap  between  the  Arab  as 
thinker  and  the  European  as  thinker  has  remained. 
Mentally  and  intellectually  we  have  always  been 
strangers  ;  and  this  estrangement  has  increased  and 
become  absolute  since  the  day  when  the  West  awoke 
to  the  consciousness  of  its  own  powers  and  its  own 
mission  in  the  world.  At  the  time  of  the  Renais- 
sance, Arab  knowledge  and  scholarship,  Arab  art 
and  poetry,  had  illumined  and  beautified  the  world 
for  some  seven  centuries ;  yet  when  the  awakened 
mind  of  Europe  turned  to  its  own  task  and  sought 
about  for  such  stimulus  and  co-operation  as  might 
be  available,  all  this  culture  and  knowledge  were  as 
practically  ignored  as  though  they  had  never  existed. 
I  do  not  believe  that  in  Symond's  history  of  the 
causes  which  led  to  the  Renaissance  the  learning 
of  the  Arabs  is  so  much  as  mentioned.  I  do  not 
remember  that  in  Pater's  subtle  analysis  of  the 
currents  of  thought  and  feeling  blended  in  Renais- 
sance culture,  the  Arab  influence  is  even  distin- 
guished. The  mind  of  Europe  turned  back  to  and 
claimed  kinship  with  the  minds  of  the  thinkers  and 
poets  and  artists  of  Greece  and  Rome.  The  line  of 
descent  of  ideas  and  intellectual  sympathy  then 
recognised  has  ever  since  been  adhered  to,  and  the 
consequence  is  that  the  whole  Arab  episode  has 
dropped  out  of  the  life  of  Europe  in  the  same  way 
that  a  dream  or  momentary  hallucination  drops  out 
of  personal  recollection. 

And  if  we  question  more  closely  why  this  total 
separation  took  place,  and  what  there  was  so  in- 
compatible in  essence  between  Arab  and  European 

156 


THE  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE 
thought,  the  answer  is  easily  forthcoming.  What 
Europe  awoke  to  at  the  Renaissance  was  the 
value  of  intellectual  culture,  the  value  of  thought 
and  reason.  She  went  forward  on  these  lines ;  and 
the  chief  characteristic  of  the  civilisation  which  has 
ensued  has  been  that  rational  quality  in  it  which, 
whatever  else  it  may  have  done,  has  secured  for  it 
coherence  and  durability.  But  every  step  taken  in 
this  direction  was  a  step  away  from  the  Arabs. 
Their  mental  activity  never  was  of  this  kind.  It 
was  not  indeed  activity  of  the  intellect  so  much  as 
activity  of  the  fancy  and  imagination,  and  although 
it  blossomed  with  incredible  swiftness  into  many 
imposing  results,  yet  these  were  all  infected  from 
the  beginning  with  the  instability  of  half-fanciful 
creations.  "Whatever  real  knowledge  they  pos- 
sessed," is  the  conclusion  of  so  sympathetic  a  critic 
as  Prescott,  "  was  corrupted  by  their  inveterate  pro- 
pensity for  mystical  and  occult  science.  They  too 
often  exhausted  both  health  and  fortune  in  fruitless 
researches  after  the  eHxir  of  life  and  the  philosopher's 
stone.  Their  medical  prescriptions  were  regulated 
by  the  aspect  of  the  stars.  Their  physics  were 
debased  by  magic  ;  their  chemistry  degenerated  into 
alchemy,  their  astronomy  into  astrology." 

If  the  reader  will  compare  these  eager  but  ill- 
sustained  conquests  in  the  realms  of  knowledge 
with  those  conquests  in  warfare  which  we  were  just 
now  considering,  he  will  perceive  their  identity  of 
character.  Both  are  marked  by  the  same  curious 
combination  of  energy  and  instability.  Both,  by  their 
ostentation  and  the  dazzling  show  they  make,  tempt 
the  historian  to  eloquent  panegyrics,  and  both  leave 

^S7 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
him  in  the  long  run  puzzled  and  fumbling  about  for 
tangible  results.  Mingled  together  and  fused  into 
one,  these  attributes  form  the  basis  of  the  Arab 
temperament;  and,  welling  out  into  all  his  actions 
and  creations,  stamp  them  with  the  same  unique 
character.  Never  will  the  reader,  when  once  he 
has  learnt  to  recognise  that  feebly  emphatic  manner, 
mistake  its  author.  Let  him  look  for  the  blind 
emotional  impulse,  for  the  signs  of  furious  haste 
and  impetuosity  which  arise  from  such  a  motive ; 
and  at  the  same  time  let  him  look  for  the  weakness 
and  instability  which  result  from  the  lack  of  clear 
thinking  and  reasoning  ;  and  wherever  these  traces 
appear,  whether  in  action,  in  science,  or  in  art,  he 
may  be  sure  the  Arab  has  passed  that  way. 

With  this  clue  in  our  hands  we  shall  not  find  it 
difficult  to  interpret  Arab  architecture.  *'  The  Arabs 
themselves,"  Fergusson  tells  us, "  had  no  architecture 
properly  so  called,"  and  it  is  true  that  in  each  country 
they  invaded  and  thereafter  settled  in,  they  made  of 
the  architecture  there  existing  a  basis  for  their  own 
style  of  building.  That  is  to  say,  they  proceeded  by 
altering  existing  forms  rather  than  by  evolving  a 
homogeneous  and  consistent  style  of  their  own. 
Yet  these  alterations  of  the  Arabs,  though  diverse 
in  effect  and  resulting  in  totally  different  forms  in 
different  parts  of  the  Empire,  are  always  curiously 
similar  in  character.  From  the  very  first,  from  the 
earliest  days  of  Arab  construction,  their  object,  and 
the  only  thing  in  which  they  were  consistent,  was 
the  breaking  up  and  dislocation  of  the  old-established 
structural  features.  These  features,  the  plain  and 
massive  round  arch  and  vault  and  the  equally  plain 

»58 


THE  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE 
and  massive  lintel  and  entablature,  constituted  the 
essentials  of  the  two  great  families  of  arcuated  and 
trabeated  architecture  then  in  being,  and  with  regard 
to  both  of  these  the  main  idea  they  express,  or 
perhaps  I  may  better  put  it,  the  sensation  with 
which  they  are  both  impregnated  and  which  they 
convey  to  the  onlooker,  is  the  sensation  of  passive 
strength,  a  strength,  that  is  to  say,  not  energetic 
but  full  rather  of  quietude  and  a  calm  stability. 
This  feeling  is  strongest  no  doubt  in  the  lintel,  but 
it  is  very  strong  also  in  the  semicircular  arch  and 
vault,  and  it  was  in  the  latter  guise  that  the  Arabs 
had  most  to  do  with  it. 

From  the  outset  they  could  not  abide  it ;  indeed, 
I  know  of  no  more  convincing  testimony  to  the 
innate  significance  of  form  than  this  meeting  between 
all  that  was  most  serene  in  architecture  and  all  that 
was  most  fiery  and  impulsive  in  human  nature,  and 
the  instant  fury  of  recognition  which  ensued.  Not 
for  a  moment  were  the  Arabs  in  doubt  on  this 
head.  Perfectly  conscious  as  they  were  of  their 
own  ignorance  in  matters  of  art  and  eager  to  adopt 
the  knowledge  of  others ;  with  a  natural  antipathy, 
moreover,  to  the  arduous  processes  of  architecture, 
and  unwilling  on  principle  to  build  for  themselves 
when  they  could  get  any  one  else  to  build  for  them, 
they  yet,  in  regard  to  those  structural  features  held 
hitherto  in  universal  honour,  would  make  no  terms 
and  listen  to  no  suggestions.  Towards  all  established 
and  organic  forms  they  had  the  instinctive  animosity 
of  the  ordained  iconoclast,  the  appointed  destroyer. 
The  impulse  to  take  to  pieces  and  disintegrate,  to 
bite  upon  solids  like  a  corrosive  acid,  was  paramount 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
in  them.  This  being  so,  the  firmly  wrougnt  vaults 
and  arches  of  the  Romanesque  and  Byzantine  style 
were  naturally  repugnant  to  every  Arab  feeling,  and 
with  instantly  aroused  enmity  they  threw  them- 
selves upon  these  features  and  broke  them  up  and 
dislocated  them. 

The  result  is  without  parallel  in  the  history  of 
architecture.  Those  solid  and  serene  forms,  in 
their  grave  march  through  the  centuries,  seem,  as 
they  enter  on  the  Arab  epoch,  to  be  seized  upon  by 
a  force  of  an  unprecedented  kind,  under  the  attack 
of  which  they  buckle  and  bend  in  all  directions  like 
a  child's  toys.  The  prestige  of  the  Greek  genius, 
the  weight  of  Roman  authority,  went  for  nothing  in 
the  cataclysm.  Whoever  is  accustomed  to  connect 
architectural  and  historical  events  can  have,  I 
imagine,  little  difficulty  in  matching  this  structural 
convulsion  with  its  social  equivalent.  There  is  only 
one  event  in  history  which  has  this  character.  The 
new,  strange  force  that  crumpled  up  Greek  and 
Roman  formations,  what  is  it  but  another  mode  of 
action  of  that  frantic  energy  unloosed  from  the 
desert  which  was  shattering  in  all  directions  the 
social  fabric  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  Empires  ? 

But  if  the  Arab  attack  is  unanimous  in  its  object 
to  break  up  the  old  quietness  and  strength,  there  is 
very  little  unanimity  in  its  own  suggested  alternatives. 
A  volume  of  illustrations  would  be  necessary  to 
depict  the  multitudinous  shapes  to  which  the  arch 
alone  was  soon  reduced.  Stilted  arches,  horseshoe 
arches,  pointed  arches,  ogive  arches,  arches  curved 
and  foliated  and  twisted  into  a  thousand  nameless  and 
inexplicable  designs,  arches  inverted  and  standing 
1 60 


Old  Roman  capitals  and  columns^  weak  plaster  con- 
struction^ and  arches  well-nigh  shapeless^  make  this  a 
very  adequate  illust7-atio7i  of  Arab  architecture 

GREAT  MOSQUE  OF  KAIRWAN  (ARCADES)     /.   i6o 


THE  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE 

on  their  heads,  arches  with  voussoirs  elaborately 
tangled  and  interlaced,  such  are  a  few  of  the 
varieties  which  occur  more  or  less  freely  in  all 
Arab  buildings.  The  racial  mark  set  on  this  feature 
alone  is  unmistakable,  and  every  one  susceptible  to 
the  meaning  of  form  may  easily  interpret  it.  The 
imaginative  excitability  at  work  here  is  matched  to 
a  nicety  in  all  Arab  affairs  and  ideas.  It  represents 
the  element,  strongly  mixed  with  the  Arab  civilisa- 
tion, which  differentiates  it  from  that  of  the  Western 
races.  What  is  striking  about  these  Arab  arches  is 
that  they  are  not  fashioned  simply  as  structural 
features,  as  Western  arches  are,  that  is  to  say  with 
regard  to  their  structural  use  and  purpose  only,  but 
are  used  primarily  to  exercise  the  fancy  upon ;  the 
shapes  they  take  being  recommended  by  no  sort  of 
real  use  but  being  merely  an  outlet  or  safety-valve 
for  the  whims  and  fantasies  of  the  builders.  But 
this  is  precisely  what  we  find  in  all  Arab  transactions, 
and  what  in  all  things  makes  the  difference  between 
the  Arab  and  Western  races.  Arab  science  and 
philosophy,  Arab  thought  and  learning  are  per- 
meated through  and  through  with  this  same  fan- 
tastical spirit.  They  none  of  them,  any  more  than 
the  arches,  exist  for  their  own  purposes  only,  but 
are  charged  always  with  the  same  incorrigible 
tendency  to  imaginative  eccentricity.  In  the  same 
way  if  we  compare  the  bare  use  of  words  by  the 
Western  races  and  the  Arabs,  we  shall  find  that  the 
former  keep  constantly  in  view  the  strict  relation- 
ship between  the  word  and  the  fact,  a  practice  which 
gives  to  their  mode  of  expression  a  certain  simplicity 
and  moderation  ;   whereas  the  latter  break  away 

L  i6l 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
from  this  connection  with  fact  and  use  words  as  the 
vehicle  for  their  own  whimsical  fancies.  Let  the 
reader  turn  up  a  translation  of  any  Arab  description 
of  the  beauties  of  Granada,  and  compare  the  vague 
rodomontade  and  fantastical  exaggeration  into 
which  the  language  is  wrought  with  the  equally 
wild  fancifulness  of  the  Alhambra  arcades,  and  he 
will  acknowledge  one  of  the  most  striking  similitudes 
between  ideas  and  forms  that  the  history  of  archi- 
tecture has  to  show. 

But  we  must  look  more  closely  yet  into  the 
quality  of  this  architecture  if  its  value  as  a  record 
of  human  character  is  to  be  made  clear.  It  was  a 
trait  of  all  Arab  action,  as  I  just  now  said,  that  it 
was  spasmodic,  impulsive  and  short-lived,  that  its 
very  ardour  was  always  tinged  with  feebleness,  and 
that  it  had  no  sooner  accomplished  something,  or 
conquered  and  settled  in  some  new  country,  than 
symptoms  of  decay  and  disintegration  began  to 
creep  in,  and  all  it  had  achieved  began  to  fall  to 
pieces.  It  was  so,  too,  in  building.  What  Fergusson 
says  of  the  great  works  of  the  Moors  of  Spain,  that 
they  seem  to  have  been  built  for  a  momentary 
enjoyment,  and  in  accordance  with  a  momentary 
caprice,  is  true  of  all  Arab  buildings.  It  scarcely 
needs  to  be  pointed  out  that  complicated  forms 
must  always  make  for  weakness  in  architecture,  and 
that  those  fantastic  arches  of  which  I  was  just  now 
speaking  are  open  at  a  hundred  points  to  the  chances 
of  fracture,  while  from  the  irregularity  of  their  con- 
struction they  are  incapable  of  opposing  an  even 
and  steady  resistance  to  the  various  thrusts  and 
pressures  to  which  they  are  subjected.  Frequently 
162 


Heie  ca?i  be  traced  more  fully  the  uneven  surfaces  and  slovenly 
arches  strengthened  with  wooden  ties.  You  can  scarcely  call 
this  architecture.,  it  so  lacks  the  architectonic  sense 

GREAT  MOSQUE  OP^  KAIRWAN  (INTERIOR)  A  162 


THE  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE 

accordingly  they  show  signs  of  giving  way,  and  the 
ties  of  wood  or  iron  which  are  used  to  counteract 
the  lateral  thrust  of  the  arches,  and  the  presence  of 
which  is  in  itself  a  pretty  sure  indication  of  feeble 
construction,  are  quite  incapable  of  preserving 
the  regularity  of  their  shape.  Traces  constantly 
appear  of  a  lack  of  uniformity  and  correctness  of 
outline.  Here  they  bulge  ;  there  they  sag.  This  one 
is  evidently  lop-sided ;  that  one  is  giving  to  its 
neighbour's  pressure.  Such  are  the  common  and 
usual  mannerisms  of  Arab  arcades,  and  they  pro- 
duce to  a  Western  eye  an  immediate  and  painful 
effect  of  feebleness  and  insecurity. 

Another  source  of  weakness  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Arab  instinct  for  appropriating  the  remnants  of 
older  buildings.  The  plentifulness  of  Roman  ruins 
furnished  an  inexhaustible  store  just  fitted  to  Arab 
requirements.  Eager  but  careless,  it  suited  them  far 
better  to  steal  columns  and  capitals  from  classic 
structures  than  to  cut  and  carve  them  for  themselves. 
Countless  are  the  buildings,  from  the  Great  Pyramids 
to  Roman  baths  and  palaces,  which  the  Arabs 
impartially  rifled,  and  most  of  their  mosques  are  in 
large  measure,  many  of  them  entirely,  constructed 
of  such  fragments.  **  This  of  course  involved  the 
hasty  adaptation  of  all  sorts  of  structural  features 
to  positions  which  they  had  never  been  meant  to 
occupy,  and  this  process  of  adaptation  in  Arab  hands 
is  a  very  rough-and-ready  one.  Shafts  are  rudely 
broken  off  to  shorten  them,  or  are  propped  on  blocks 
of  stone  to  lengthen  them.  Again  and  again  I  have 
noticed,  in  the  mosques  of  Egypt  and  North  Africa, 
wedges  of  wood  carelessly  hammered  in  between 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

shafts  and  capitals  to  raise  the  latter  to  the  right 
level.  Sometimes  the  capitals,  chipped  and  defaced 
as  they  mostly  are,  are  set  on  upside  down,  the 
cracks  and  rents  in  them  being  patched  up  with 
coarse  mortar.  Evidently  speed  counts  for  more 
here  than  durability.  The  fact  that  stones,  designed 
for  the  places  they  had  to  fill  and  accurately  fitted 
to  them,  would  yield  a  more  stable  kind  of  architec- 
ture than  a  lot  of  incongruous  fragments  eked  out 
with  stray  chunks  of  wood  and  stone  was  to  the 
Arabs  of  no  consequence.  Let  the  structure  take 
shape  instantly,  that  was  the  great  thing.  So  long 
as  it  could  be  finished  to-day,  what  did  it  matter  if  it 
fell  to  pieces  to-morrow  ? 

Many  more  indications  might  be  mentioned  of  the 
weakness  which  is  inherent  in  all  Arab  structures, 
and  in  particular  I  am  tempted  to  linger  over  their 
minute  and  complicated  patterns  of  decorative 
design,  patterns  which  in  their  feeble  restlessness 
seem  to  embody  the  dreams  of  fevered  pillows.  I 
will  content  myself,  however,  with  referring  to  one 
more,  but  that  the  most  fundamental,  symptom  of 
weakness.  The  reader  will  not  need  to  be  told,  if 
he  takes  any  interest  in  the  subject  of  architecture, 
that  the  quality  of  the  masonry,  constituting  as  it 
does  the  very  substance  of  the  structure  and  founda- 
tion of  all  subsequent  effects,  is  really  the  most 
profoundly  characteristic  feature  of  the  art,  and,  in 
its  quality,  the  surest  indication  of  its  builder's 
architectural  capacity.  As  for  the  quality  of  Arab 
masonry,  it  is  much  what  the  insecurity  of  their 
construction  in  other  respects  would  have  led  one 
to  expect.  Smooth  cutting  and  exact  setting  are 
164 


Look  at  the  walls,  doorways,  arches  of  this  sample  of 
native  work.  There  is  no  constructive  instinct  in  it 
at  all 

VILLAGE  IN  THE  SAHARA.     SOUF  p.  164 


THE  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE 
never  even  attempted.     Brickwork  and  stonework 
are  put  loosely  together,  with  joints  so  wide  and 
irregular,   and  filled   with    mortar    so    weak    and 
crumbling — moreover,  they  are  so  ill-adjusted  and 
unsymmetrical,  with  surfaces  so  untrue  and  inexact 
— that  they  probably  constitute  the  worst  masonry 
ever  used  by  other  than  downright  savages.     It  is  of 
a  kind  which  seems  to  welcome  dissolution,  for  it 
exhibits  a  natural  inclination  to  crumble  and  fall  to 
pieces  of  its  own  accord.    The  visitor  to  the  oldest 
Cairo  mosques  will  be  struck  by  the  absence  from 
their  decay  of  all  that  dignity  and  grandeur  which 
so  often  belongs  to  ruins.     The  word  dilapidation, 
indeed,  rather  than  ruin,  expresses  theif  condition, 
A  people  of  builders,  we  in  the  North  know  that 
strength  is  the  essence  of  all  good  architecture,  and 
what  we  admire  in  a  ruin  is  the  exhibition  it  affords 
of  such  strength.    We  love  to  see,  when  all  the  softer, 
ornamental  and  decorative  qualities  have  long  been 
stripped  away,  how  the  shattered  buttress  and  broken 
arch  retain  to  the  last  their  fixed  and  stern  rigidity. 
And  we  are  right,  in  that  strength  is  the  structure's 
final  justification.     But  it  is  a  justification  which 
never  attended  on  Arab  efforts.   The  bulging  surfaces 
and  crumbling  brickwork,  the  mortar   running  in 
powder  out  of  the  joints  and  the  plaster  peeling 
from  the  walls,  reveal,  under  time's  patient  analysis, 
a  total  absence  of  that  great  attribute  which  is  the 
unfailing  mark  of  constructive  genius.   The  readiness 
of  this  architecture  to  go  to  bits  corresponds  with 
the  haste  with  which  it  was  put  together.    There  is 
nothing  more  fundamental  than  this.    It  is  here  we 
strike  the  very  bed  rock  of  Arab  character.     Under 

i6s 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
the  painting  and  the  carving,  under  the  elaborate 
stucco  ornamentation  and  the  endless  caprice  of 
structural  form,  there  is  nothing  after  all  but  weak- 
ness and  insecurity.  No  solidity  upholds  these 
fantastic  imaginings  and  gives  them  reality  and 
endurance.  Beneath  the  restless  energy  and  eager, 
nervous  impulse  we  find,  wrought  into  the  very 
texture  of  wall  and  arch,  that  profound  instability 
which  never  fails  to  attend  upon  all  Arab  under- 
takings. 

I  think  now  that,  if  the  reader  will  gather  into  an 
inteUigible  portrait  his  impressions  of  the  Arab  as 
an  historical  personage  on  the  one  hand,  and  if  on 
the  other  he  will  collect  into  one  visual  image  the 
characteristic  aspects  and  practice  of  Arab  archi- 
tecture, and  then,  if  he  will  compare  these  two  im- 
pressions together,  the  impression  of  the  Arab  as  he 
lived  and  thought  and  acted  and  the  impression  of 
the  Arab  as  he  designed  and  constructed,  I  think,  I 
say,  that  he  will  perceive  between  the  two  a  likeness 
not  to  be  denied.  That  memorable  onslaught  of  the 
Arabs  which  swept  before  it  the  old  social  landmarks 
in  a  common  ruin  is  so  closely  echoed  by  the  general 
smash-up  under  his  hands  of  established  structural 
forms  that  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  in  both  pro- 
cesses a  manifestation  of  one  and  the  same  force. 
The  whimsical  civilisation  which  accompanied  the 
Arab  dominion  and  broke  into  so  wild  a  frenzy 
of  necromantic  and  astrological  speculations  is 
paralleled  with  curious  felicity  in  the  odd  and 
freakish  shapes,  the  flamelike  mounting  spirals  and 
fantastically  curved  and  twisted  arches,  into  which 
the  new  architecture  instantly  developed.  Further, 
i66 


This  ribald  exhibition  is  the  best  example  I  can  JiJid  of 
forms  which  have  pai'ted  with  their  last  shred  of 
intellectual  selfrespect 

INTERIOR  OF  MOSQUE.     CORDOVA  /.   i66 


THE  ARAB  IN  ARCHITECTURE 
when  we  examine  more  closely  the  texture  and  com- 
position of  this  civilisation  and  this  construction, 
when  we  note  the  former's  evanescent  character,  its 
powerlessness  to  cohere  socially,  its  rapid  collapse 
and  total  obliteration,  and  then  compare  it  with  the 
crumbling  masonry  and  tottering  walls  and  columns 
of  Arab  buildings,  we  must  acknowledge  that  the 
likeness,  already  remarked  in  outward  action  and 
appearance,  extends  equally  to  the  substance  and 
the  inward  nature. 

Such,  briefly  indicated,  is  the  interpretative  value 
which  this  style  of  building  may  come  to  possess, 
if  we  approach  it  in  a  reasoning  spirit.  It  is  one  of 
those  styles  inspired  by  racial  instinct  and  an  uncon- 
trollable impulse,  the  use  of  which  is  to  instruct  us 
in  the  character  of  the  people  who  evolved  them. 
And  never  did  a  race  more  need  such  elucidation 
than  the  Arab.  Traits  which  almost  defy  definition, 
which  turn  the  Arab  of  history  into  a  phantom  and 
a  myth,  which  in  science,  in  philosophy,  in  poetry, 
still  subtly  elude  and  puzzle  us,  we  capture  at  last 
in  architecture.  Here,  arrested  in  its  living  image, 
is  that  force  which,  bred  of  the  desert,  seemed 
endowed  with  all  the  desert's  fiery  elan  and  restless 
inconstancy.  But  here  it  baffles  us  no  longer.  At 
last  we  can  seize  and  handle  it ;  and  its  strange 
mingling  of  frailty,  fickleness  and  frantic  energy 
can  be  examined  in  concrete  forms,  or  registered 
by  our  kodaks  and  pasted  into  our  albums. 


167 


CHAPTER  Vir 
THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

The  energy  of  Gothic  architecture  and  in  what  that  energy 
consists  :  The  side-thrust  of  the  arch  :  Its  unsleeping  activity  : 
The  Gothic  delight  in  this  characteristic  :  The  eagerness  with 
which  the  Gothic  races  exhibited  and  enhanced  by  all 
possible  means  the  activity  of  the  arch  principle  :  Loftiness 
of  their  vaults  :  Dangerous  character  of  side-thrusts  which 
they  provoked  and  met  :  Buttresses  and  fljdng  buttresses  : 
The  visible  conflict  betwixt  stone  and  human  energy  : 
Participation  of  Gothic  detail  in  the  structural  motive  :  Ribs, 
mouldings,  &c.,  used  to  indicate  the  arch  pressures  and 
explain  to  the  eye  bow  they  converge  and  how  they  are 
withstood  :  This  structural  activity  the  image  of  a  racial 
activity  :  Part  played  by  the  Gothic  race  :  Roman  apathy  : 
The  quickening  and  vitalising  influence  of  the  barbarian 
invasions  :  The  Gothic  ideal  in  life  :  The  revitalising  of  the 
old  Roman  system  was  the  cardinal  event  in  post-classic  life  : 
How  it  worked  out  and  formed  the  basis  of  the  national 
system  :  How  having  worked  itself  out- in  life  it  was  ripe  to 
embody  itself  in  art  :  The  twelfth  century  in  England 
and  France  :  The  moment  of  triumph  of  the  Gothic  ideal  : 
That  triumph  in  all  its  completeness  depicted  in  Gothic 
architecture 

OF  all  events  in  the  history  of  architecture  the 
transition  from  Romanesque  to  Gothic  is  incompar- 
ably the  most  striking  and  dramatic.  It  is  made  so 
partly  by  the  extraordinary  contrast  in  character 
between  the  old  style  and  the  new,  between  the 
ponderous,  solid  and  composed  Romanesque  and 
the  eager,  animated  Gothic,  and  partly  by  the  deci- 
sive and  rapid  way  in  which  the  incoming  style  set 
to  work  to  break  up  and  displace  the  old.  Mr. 
i63 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

Jackson,  in  one  of  his  lectures,  has  called  the  change 
a  "revolution,"  and  its  violence  and  suddenness 
seem  to  deserve  the  name.  Moreover,  it  is  a  revolu- 
tion which  evidently  implies  a  definite  meaning  and 
purpose.  Gothic  is  so  powerful  and  decided  a 
style,  it  seems  to  know  its  own  mind  so  clearly, 
and  to  speak  its  thought  with  such  conviction  and 
emphasis,  that  we  feel  it  needs  must  have  some 
intelligible  message  to  deliver  to  us  if  only  we  could 
get  at  the  meaning  of  it. 

When,  however,  we  turn  to  the  writers  and 
lecturers  on  the  subject,  most  of  whom  are  profes- 
sional architects,  for  an  interpretation  of  this 
message,  we  often  have  to  confess  a  sense  of 
disappointment.  Mr.  Jackson  tells  us  that  the 
whole  change  came  about  owing  to  the  fact  that 
the  builders  of  our  Gothic  cathedrals  were  obliged, 
from  motives  of  economy,  to  use  small  stones 
instead  of  large  ones.  They  had  not  the  command 
of  money  or  slave  labour  that  the  Romans  had,  and 
consequently  were  obliged  to  build  with  stones  that 
could  easily  be  handled.  From  this  necessity  pro- 
ceeded the  forms  of  vaulting  and  construction  best 
adapted  to  such  a  material,  and  the  towering  Gothic 
naves  and  choirs  were  the  inevitable  result.  Such 
an  explanation  has  the  merit  of  simplicity,  but  yet  it 
is  not  quite  what  we  want.  It  is  not  such  a  solution 
as  any  one  who  feels  very  deeply  the  personal 
influence,  as  it  may  be  called,  of  Gothic,  will  be 
quite  contented  with.  Nor  is  Mr.  Russell  Sturgis's 
solution,  though  he  has  the  majority  of  the  architects 
with  him,  much  more  satisfactory.  According  to 
this  theory  "  Gothic  architecture  was    a    natural 

169 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

development  of  the  Romanesque  architecture  of 
Northern  France,"  and  its  origin  was  *' wholly 
constructional."  That  is  to  say  it  grew  out  of  a 
difficulty  the  Romanesque  builders  had  in  roofing 
their  naves  and  aisles,  a  difficulty  which  necessitated 
and  insured  the  introduction  of  the  pointed  arch. 
As  soon  as  this  happened  "the  whole  Gothic  style, 
including  everything  from  the  Cathedral  of  Rheims 
to  the  smallest  chapel,  came  from  it  as  a  matter  of 
course." 

I  sometimes,  after  reading  such  explanations  as 
the  above,  think  that  the  poor  British  public  is  not 
wholly  to  blame  for  its  alleged,  and  I  daresay  rightly 
alleged,  indifference  to  architecture.  We  cannot  all 
be  architects,  and  unless  we  are  architects  we  cannot 
reasonably  be  expected  to  excite  ourselves  very  much 
about  the  structural  laws  governing  arches  and 
vaults,  or  the  adaptability  of  masonry.  If  this  is 
all,  if  this  explains  Gothic,  nine  out  of  ten  of  us  will 
feel  that  the  mistake  we  were  under  was  in  attaching 
the  importance  we  did  to  the  subject.  In  explaining 
away  our  difficulties  Mr.  Jackson  and  Mr.  Russell 
Sturgis  explain  away  our  interest.  We  thought  we 
were  ignorant  of  something  supremely  worth  know- 
ing. We  find  we  were  ignorant  of  something  which 
to  us,  not  being  professional  architects,  is  of  no 
importance.  What  wonder  if,  humbly  accepting  the 
explanations  given,  we  incline  for  the  future  to  leave 
architecture  to  the  architects  ? 

And  yet — and  it  says  a  good  deal  for  the  power  of 
Gothic  that  it  should  be  so — we  no  sooner  find  our- 
selves inside  one  of  our  great  cathedrals  than  all 
these  explanations  fall  away  from  us.  They  are  so 
170 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

inadequate,  or  rather  they  are  so  totally  disconnected 
with  the  cogent  influence  felt  around  us  here,  and 
vouched  for  by  the  power  and  unanimity  of  the 
architecture,  that,  however  humbly  we  may  have 
acquiesced  in  them  in  the  lecture-room  or  the  book, 
we  quite  forget  them  in  presence  of  the  architecture 
itself.  Or,  if  we  remember  them  at  all,  it  is  to  per- 
ceive that  they  are  not  an  explanation  of  ends  but  of 
means.  They  do  not  explain  "  why  "  Gothic  archi- 
tecture arose,  but  *'  how  "  it  arose.  If,  we  think,  in 
presence  of  the  strength  of  purpose  here  prevailing, 
the  Gothic  builders  used  small  masonry,  it  was 
because  small  masonry  suited  the  purpose  they  had 
in  view ;  if  they  developed  certain  structural  laws  it 
was,  again,  because  such  laws  lent  themselves  to  the 
purpose  in  view.  The  purpose  of  Gothic  architec- 
ture is  a  thing  which,  in  its  presence  at  least,  we  are 
unable  to  doubt,  and  no  explanation  stands  a  serious 
chance  with  us  which  does  not  address  itself  imme- 
diately to  the  elucidation  of  that  purpose,  or  which 
thinks  that  it  solves  the  question  by  an  analysis 
of  the  mechanical  and  material  means  by  which 
that  purpose  was  carried  out.  A  style  so  forcible 
supposes  the  existence  of  a  distinct  thought.  It 
must  have  existed  in  the  minds  of  its  builders  before 
it  existed  as  architecture.  It  was  an  idea  before  it 
was  a  fact. 

Thinking  thus,  it  is  needless  to  say  that  my  own 
humble  notions  concerning  Gothic  lead  me  not 
so  much  to  a  minute  examination  of  masonry  or 
vaulting  as  to  the  age  and  people  among  whom 
Gothic  had  its  origin.  I  will  ask  the  reader  by-and- 
by  to  accompany  me  in  an  excursion  into  past 

171 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

history;  but  before  doing  so,  and  that  we  may 
know  what  we  are  in  search  of,  I  wish  to  draw 
attention  to  one  characteristic  trait  of  the  style,  in 
which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  its  significance  mainly 
lies. 

Gothic  then,  let  the  reader  observe,  is  the  only 
architecture  known  to  us,  with  one  possible  excep- 
tion, which  possesses  the  quality  of  energy.  By 
energy  I  mean  strength  in  action  as  distinguished 
from  strength  in  repose.  The  only  other  style  which 
possesses  some  trace  of  this  quality  is  the  Arab,  with 
which  I  have  already  dealt.  Apart  from  Arab  archi- 
tecture, however,  Gothic  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  its  sole 
possessor.  All  other  styles  exhibit  strength  in  repose 
only.    Gothic  alone  exhibits  strength  in  action. 

That  this  may  be  understood  we  must  begin  by 
pointing  out  that  there  is  available  in  architecture 
only  one  possible  source  of  energy,  energy  being 
defined  as  strength  in  action  as  distinguished  from 
strength  in  repose.  There  is  only  one  structural 
principle  which  exerts  an  active  strength,  and  that  is 
the  arch  principle;  the  reason  for  this  being  that 
the  arch  is  the  only  constructive  form  which  diffuses 
a  lateral  pressure,  and  that  lateral  pressure  cannot 
be  directly  met  and  set  at  rest. 

A  word  of  explanation  will  make  this  clear.  The 
downward  pressure  of  superincumbent  weight  acting 
upon  the  arch  frame  tends  to  drive  in  the  head  of  the 
arch.  But  in  order  to  effect  this  it  has  to  force  the 
sides  of  the  arch  apart,  and  this  attempt  to  force 
the  sides  apart  translates  the  original  vertical  pressure 
into  lateral  thrust.  To  accept  the  first  illustration 
that  occurs,  if  we  were  to  take  a  child's  wooden 
172 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 
hoop  and  press  down  upon  the  upper  rim,  the  sides 
would,  of  course,  expand.  The  vertical  pressure 
would  be  translated  into  lateral  thrust.  This  is 
precisely  how  the  arch  deals  with  its  burden.  In- 
stead of  transmitting  the  pressure  in  a  direct  line 
to  the  ground,  it  radiates  it  in  ^part  horizontally 
to  left  and  right.  This  is  the  pressure  that  cannot 
be  met,  for  it  is  not  possible  to  intercept  a  force 
exerted  across  the  line  of  gravity.  And  since  it 
cannot  be  met  it  is  "persistently  active,  persistently 
alive.  The  Indians  have  an  acute  saying  to  denote 
this  activity  of  the  arch.  "  The  arch,"  they  say, 
"  never  sleeps."  Place  a  lintel  of  stone  across  two 
uprights  and  you  have  an  arrangement  in  passive 
architecture.  The  lintel  sleeps.  The  structure  will 
stand  till  the  stones  dissolve.  But  introduce  arches 
into  a  fabric  and  you  have  started  forces  you  cannot 
lay,  forces  which  will  go  on  day  and  night  w^orking 
at  the  disintegration  of  the  building,  because  no 
counterforce  which  the  wit  of  man  can  devise  can 
be  brought  to  meet  that  sideways  thrust  point-blank 
and  send  it  to  sleep.  Accordingly,  as  this  sideways 
pressure  is  the  only  conceivable  force  in  architecture 
which  remains  constantly  active,  and  as  the  arch  is 
the  only  means  by  which  this  sideways  pressure  can 
be  exerted,  it  is  clear  that  the  arch  is  the  source  of 
all  activity  in  architecture ;  or,  if  we  define  energy 
as  strength  in  action  in  contradistinction  to  strength 
in  repose,  of  all  energy. 

Having  grasped  this  important  fact,  let  us  consider 
what  there  was  peculiar  in  the  Gothic  treatment  of 
the  arch.  The  arch  had  had,  in  the  West,  a  dis- 
appointing career.     The  Greeks  of  the  great  age  of 

^73 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

Greece  detested  it  on  principle.  Its  unintelligible 
methods  seemed  consonant  with  no  clear  and  simple 
effects,  with  no  precise  intellectual  definitions.  Ideal 
beauty  had  no  part  or  lot  in  the  accursed  thing.  On 
the  other  hand  the  Romans  used  it  freely,  yet  used 
it  in  a  shamefaced  way,  hiding  it  as  much  as  possible 
behind  sham  columns  and  architraves,  and  for  the 
most  part  forming  it  of  one  solid  lump  of  concrete, 
by  which  means  the  side-thrust  was  of  course 
neutralised  and  the  utility  of  the  arch  impaired. 
Whether,  however,  treated  from  the  aesthetic  or  the 
utilitarian  standpoint,  it  was  always  felt,  all  through 
the  classic  age  and  as  long  as  the  clear-cut  Greek 
taste  prevailed,  that  there  was  something  vulgar  and 
second-rate  about  the  arch.  Anything  obscure  or 
involved  was  above  all  things  odious  to  the  classic 
mind,  and  the  arch,  owing  to  its  habit  of  distributing 
pressure  sideways,  is  undoubtedly  compared  to  the 
column  and  lintel,  a  very  involved  and  structural 
fsature  indeed.  In  short  the  arch's  lateral  thrust 
had  been  its  reproach,  the  blot  upon  its  scutcheon, 
a  defect  which  it  was  advisable  to  hide  or  avert 
attention  from  as  much  as  possible.     ^^ 

And  although,  as  the  scrupulous  Greek  ideal  died, 
the  arch  established  itself  in  general  use  and  came 
out  from  behind  its  classic  mask  and  vindicated  its 
claim  to  frank  treatment,  and  although,  on  one 
occasion,  in  S.  Sophia,  it  was  allowed  to  exhibit 
its  utmost  capacity ;  yet  still  it  remained  for 
Gothic  builders  to  actually  exalt  and  glorify  what 
always  had  been  considered  its  main  defect.*  For 
this  is  what  they  set  themselves  to  do.  It  wouk^ 
*  See  note,  page  206. 

174 


f\e:ia5 
cathedral 


CR055 
5ECTlOn. 


SCALE  OF 
FEET. 
J50 


Showing  the  skeleton  of  Gothic  construction  and  how 
the  side  thrust  of  the  tall  nave  vault  is  resisted 

REIMS  CATHEDRAL  p    174 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

seem  that  in  the  irrepressible  energy  latent  in  the 
arch  principle  the  new  races  recognised  a  quality 
after  their  own  hearts.  At  any  rate,  far  from  con- 
cealing or  fighting  shy  of  it,  they  set  themselves  to 
develop  to  the  utmost  this  very  characteristic,  and 
even  to  exaggerate  and  show  off  its  waywardness 
and  intractability  as  if  they  were  the  most  desirable 
of  virtues.  In  this  dangerous  vitality  the  new 
builders  proceeded  to  deal  as  the  subject-matter 
of  their  architectural  style.  They  stimulated  it  by 
degrees  and  from  small  beginnings.  Liking  its  ways 
they  studied  how  to  foster  and  increase  it,  and  as  it 
grew  and  sent  forth  its  strength  they  delighted  in 
the  prowess  of  the  only  adversary  they  had  met 
whose  energy  equalled  their  own.  Moreover,  the 
joy  of  the  Gothic  builders  in  this  desperate  encounter, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  loftier-vaulted  structures  it  really 
came  to  be,  is  matched  by  their  wonderful  apprecia- 
tion of  every  expedient  and  stratagem  involved  in 
this  kind  of  warfare.  They  handle  these  powers  of 
their  own  unloosing  with  an  almost  scornful  famili- 
arity, guiding  and  directing  the  tremendous  pressures 
of  the  arches  to  the  props  and  supports  beneath, 
and  as  the  vaults  rise  higher  and  their  thrusts  grow 
more  dangerous  and  ungovernable,  inventing  expe- 
dients of  unheard-of  daring  to  counter  and  withstand 
them.  They  carry  on  the  fight,  too,  in  the  full  day- 
light, hand  to  hand  with  the  stript  stone,  convinced 
that,  for  the  spectator  as  for  themselves,  it  must 
needs  be  the  most  fascinating  of  all  spectacles; 
exhibiting  every  thrust  and  parry,  every  push  of  the 
tall  roof  and  counter-buff  of  flying  buttress  spring- 
ing in  leaps  to  meet  its  enemy,  in  naked  relief,  and 

'75 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
calling  upon  us  to  share  in  their  excitement  as  they 
"  ride  on  the  whirlwind  and  direct  the  storm "  of 
the  fierce  forces  they  have  evoked. 

Gothic,  in  short,  one  is  tempted  to  say,  is  less  a 
style  than  a  fight.  When  we  stand  to-day  in  a 
Gothic  interior,  with  the  vaults  of  nave  and  tran- 
septs meeting  overhead,  and  the  choir  opening  in 
front  like  some  great  chasm  in  a  cliff,  and  look 
up  at  the  tall,  narrow  roofs  half  hidden  in  shadow 
abutting  against  each  other,  it  may  be  we  seldom 
enough  realise  how  strenuous  and  alive  are  the  forces 
which  are  here  engaged.  But  difficult  as  it  is  to  con- 
nect the  idea  of  activity  with  such  rigid  immobility, 
yet  really  every  portion  of  the  structure  is  in  violent 
and  furious  action.  The  immense  weight  of  the 
lofty  roofs,  flung  sideways  by  the  thrust  of  their 
vaults  and  threatening  to  burst  the  whole  building 
asunder,  is  met  and  checked  by  the  pressure  of 
vaults  setting  in  the  opposite  direction.  Thrust 
meets  thrust  in  full  career.  The  aisles  and  side 
chapels  push  for  all  they  are  worth  against  the 
strength  of  nave  and  chancel,  while  the  thrusts  too 
high  for  them  to  deal  with  are  encountered  by  the 
lofty  zigzags  of  the  flying  buttresses  and  guided  to 
earth. 

The  Gothic  architects,  then,  delighted  in  the 
vitality  of  the  arch  principle  as  it  had  never  been 
delighted  in  before.  They  were  led  on  by  this 
delight  to  use  the  arch  principle  in  a  manner,  with 
an  almost  reckless  daring  and  freedom,  hitherto 
unknown.  But  the  difference  between  Gothic  and 
earlier  arched  styles  is  not  sounded  when  we  say 
that  Gothic  used  a  principle  daringly  which  those 
176 


1 

)^  ,  J! 

^bl£  li 

To  show  what  they  were  at,  to  exhibit  nakedly  the  struc- 
tural conflict  in  which  they  zvere  e?igaged,  was  to  the  Gothic 
builders  a  sufficing  motive 

BEAUVAIS  CATHEDRAL.     APSE  p.  176 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

other  styles  had  used  timidly.  Let  us  remember 
not  only  that  every  style  to  be  genuine  must  be 
based  on  a  distinct  structural  principle,  but  that 
purity  of  style  consists  in  the  keeping  in  touch,  in 
detail  as  well  as  main  feature,  with  that  original 
structural  principle.  Style  is  the  governing  power 
of  a  single  motive  or  idea,  felt  all  through  a  building, 
working  itself  out  in  all  kinds  of  manifestations, 
decorative  as  well  as  structural,  and  so  producing 
throughout  the  whole  a  uniform  sense  of  agreement 
and  harmony.  For  perfection  of  intellectual  state- 
ment no  structural  principle  can  approach  the 
column  and  Hntel,  and  the  idea  of  exquisite  articu- 
lation which  it  supplies  is  wrought  by  the  Greeks 
through  every  stone  of  their  characteristic  style, 
and  impregnates  every  curve  and  Une  and  the 
cutting  of  every  moulding  throughout  the  whole  of 
it.  The  whole  of  Doric  is  in  direct  relation  to  its 
own  original  idea,  and  therein  consists  its  purity. 
But  in  the  same  way  the  whole  of  Gothic  also  is  in 
direct  relation  to  its  original  idea.  The  vital  energy 
of  the  arch  principle  is  not  only  developed  as  a 
structural  principle  but  it  inspires  with  a  single 
impulse  the  whole  array  of  lines,  mouldings  and 
tracery  ribs,  of  piers,  of  arches  and  vaults,  and 
turns  them  all  into  a  harmonious  expression  of  the 
original  structural  intention. 

This  is  what  is  new.  This  is  what  not  only 
reveals  the  pride  and  delight  of  the  Gothic  builders 
in  the  principle  they  had  taken  up,  but  gives  to  the 
resulting  architecture,  the  uniform,  homogeneous 
character  of  a  style,  Gothic  has  been  called  the 
linear  style  of  architecture,  and  certainly  the  existence 

M  177 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

and  significance  of  the  web  of  interior  lines  which 
seems  to  uphold  the  structure — or  rather  to  com- 
pose the  structure,  for  it  is  in  these  that  the 
strength  and  vigour  appear  to  reside,  the  walls  and 
vaulting  being  no  more  than  a  stone  veil  or  curtain 
drawn  over  these  supports — is  the  most  recognisable 
and  salient  trait  of  the  style.  These  light  and 
sinewy  lines  pervade  the  whole  structure.  They 
dart  in  sheaves  from  the  floor.  Passing  through 
the  slight  ligature  of  the  capitals  bound  about 
them  they  diverge  into  the  mouldings  of  the  aisle 
arches  or  shoot  up  the  clerestory  walls  to  sup- 
port the  tracery  of  the  nave  roof.  Arrived  at 
the  springing  of  aisle  and  nave  vaults  these  ribbed 
lines  diverge  and  spread  fanlike  over  the  vault- 
surface,  seeming  in  the  elastic  and  vigorous  frame- 
work which  they  compose  as  much  to  embody 
the  function  of  the  vaulting  as  to  explain  its 
purpose. 

Their  real  mission,  however,  is  explanatory.  It 
is  for  them  to  emphasise,  literally  by  underlining, 
the  structural  theory  of  the  architecture  and  to 
draw  attention  to  the  forces  active  in  it.  They 
have  to  exhibit  and  explain  to  us  the  direction  and 
play  of  these  forces.  They  mark  the  sectional 
joints  of  the  vault,  and  point  out  where  and  how 
the  expanding  pressure  is  guided  to  pier  or  buttress. 
Save  in  the  case  of  certain  of  the  vaulting  ribs  (and 
even  this  by  some  critics  is  held  to  be  a  fault  of 
principle  scarcely  countenanced  by  French  masters 
of  the  best  period)  they  perform  no  essential 
structural  function.  The  piers  would  serve  their 
purpose  if  they  were   mere   round  pillars.      The 

178 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

arches  would  support  their  burden  equally  well  cut 
with  flat  unmoulded  soffits.  The  whole  web  and 
system  of  lines  might  be  destroyed  without  injury 
to  the  building.  Nevertheless  this  would  destroy 
the  style  of  the  building,  for  it  would  destroy  the 
means  whereby  the  structural  theory  is  carried  out 
in  detail  and  exhibited  in  full  clearness  to  the  eye. 
Behind  those  lines  and  ribs  and  sharp-drawn 
mouldings  are  the  invisible  thrusts  and  pressures 
of  which  we  were  just  now  speaking,  which  are 
generated  by  the  lofty  vaults  and  arches  and  pene- 
trate and  govern  the  whole  building.  As  the  lines 
on  a  map  which  mark  the  flow  of  tides  when  they 
converge  to  a  strait  carry  the  eye  with  them  in  their 
apparent  motion,  so  do  those  lines  which  draw 
from  all  quarters  to  concentrate  in  Gothic  piers  and 
buttresses.  They  convey  the  same  sense  of  motion, 
of  currents  of  vitality  in  active  circulation.  And 
the  currents  are  there.  Study  the  zigzagging  of  the 
vaulted  ribs  and  you  are  studying  the  structural 
scheme  of  the  vaults  themselves.  Follow  them  as 
they  collect  at  stated  points  between  the  clerestory 
windows,  and  you  are  following  the  direction  of  the 
weight  thrown  from  above  on  to  the  props  and 
supports  beneath.  Pick  up  the  guiding  lines  of 
nave  and  aisle  arches  and  it  is  the  structural  action 
of  the  arches  themselves  which  is  being  explained 
to  you.  In  short  the  whole  Gothic  scheme  of  ribs 
and  mouldings,  so  irresistible  to  the  eye,  is  only  the 
visible  manifestation  of  the  invisible  forces  actually 
operating.  It  is  a  manifestation,  in  other  words,  of 
the  unquenchable  energy  of  the  arch  principle,  for 
the  action  of  arches  and  the  manner  in  which  their 

m 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

thrusts  act  and  react  upon  each  other  is  the  only 
theme  treated. 

In  composition,  therefore,  and  detail  both,  carried 
out  through  every  part  and  portion  of  the  structure* 
the  exhibition  of  vital  energy  in  architecture  is  the 
supreme  motive  of  Gothic.  But  do  not  let  the 
reader  imagine  that  it  is  a  stone  struggle  only  he  is 
watching  in  those  dim  cathedral  vaults,  that  the 
matter  ends  there,  in  those  piers  and  arches,  and 
that  any  structural  explanation  of  these  will  give  him 
the  clue  and  meaning  of  it.  No,  the  meaning  must 
be  looked  for  elsewhere.  The  measure  and  equiva- 
lent of  the  energy  here  displayed  will  be  found  in 
the  human  energy  of  the  race  which  brought  forth 
the  style.  If  the  Goths  alone  loved  the  unquench- 
able vitality  latent  in  the  arch  principle,  if  they 
fostered  and  developed  it,  made  it  their  plaything 
and  measured  their  strength  against  it,  it  was 
because  they  alone  sympathised  with  and  under- 
stood it,  because  they  felt  within  themselves  the 
kindred  impulse,  because  they  werCf  in  a  word,  what 
they  were  making.  In  their  own  image  created  they 
these  wrestling  ribs  and  vaults.  It  is  here  the  secret 
lies  of  the  overmastering  attraction  which  the  new 
style  possessed,  not  for  the  leaders  and  geniuses  of 
the  age  only — for  this  was  not  one  of  those  purely 
artistic  products  which  claim  special  insight  and  are 
great  only  in  the  hands  of  the  great — but  for  the 
mass  of  the  people  and  the  whole  race.  This  is  the 
reason  of  the  spontaneous  and  rapid  growth  of  a 
style  which  sprang  up  without  effort  and  of  its  own 
volition  because  it  was  an  embodiment  of  racial 
character  and  because  men  recognised  in  it  and 
1 80 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

carried  within  their   own   hearts   the   clue   to    its 
meaning. 

It  is  to  the  authors  of  the  new  style  we  must  have 
recourse.  We  know  that  in  the  sphere  of  architec- 
ture what  Gothic  energy  did  was  to  break  up 
Romanesque.  But  Romanesque,  to  adopt  Professor 
Banister  Fletcher's  delinition,  "  may  be  said  to 
include  all  those  phases  of  Western  European 
architecture  which  were  more  or  less  based  on 
Roman  art,  and  which  were  being  carried  out,  in  a 
rough-and-ready  way,  in  various  parts  of  Europe, 
from  the  departure  of  the  Romans  up  to  the  intro- 
duction of  the  pointed  arch."  All  these  round 
arched  styles  are  Roman  in  origin.  They  were, 
with  many  variations,  still  carrying  on  the  main 
Roman  traditions,  and  in  fact  between  a  Saxon, 
Norman,  or  Lombardic  church,  with  their  general 
massiveness  and  rounded  arches  and  vaults,  and  the 
baths  and  palaces  of  the  classic  age  there  exists, 
under  the  differences,  a  fundamental  similarity  of 
character  which  cannot  be  mistaken.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  these  styles  derived  from  Rome  held  their 
own,  as  Professor  Banister  Fletcher  says,  **  from  the 
departure  of  the  Romans  up  to  the  introduction  of 
the  pointed  arch,"  the  new  races,  the  barbarians 
who  overwhelmed  Rome,  could  not  during  all  that 
time  have  produced  a  distinctive  style  of  their  own, 
and  we  must  consider  Gothic  as  being,  therefore, 
their  first  distinctive  style.  So  that  the  vigorous 
attack  of  Gothic  on  Romanesque  is  the  attack  of  the 
great  style  of  the  barbarians  on  one  still  in  the  main 
Roman.  That  is  the  architectural  side  of  the  matter. 
If,  however,  we  turn  back  some  six  or  seven  centuries 

l8l 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
in  European  history  we  shall  come  to  a  more  lively 
representation  of  the  same  encounter,  and  one  which 
will,  perhaps,  throw  some  light  on  its  architectural 
aspect. 

We  shall  be  well  within  the  mark  in  saying  that 
the  Roman  Empire  was  the  greatest  triumph  of 
admimstrative  control  known  to  history.  The  idea 
of  control,  indeed,  as  opposed  to  the  idea  of  freedom, 
was  its  guiding  motive.  Gibbon,  who  held  that 
powers  of  self-government  "  will  be  first  abused  and 
afterwards  lost  if  they  are  committed  to  an  unwieldy 
multitude,"  and  whose  own  ideas  of  government 
were  perfectly  represented  by  the  Roman  polity, 
has  described  with  much  appreciation  her  careful 
measures  for  suppressing  the  dangerous  spirit  of 
liberty.  When  that  object  had  been  attained,  "  when 
the  popular  assemblies  had  been  suppressed  by  the 
administration  of  the  Emperor,"  then  indeed,  "  the 
conquerors  were  distinguished  from  the  vanquished 
nations  only  as  the  first  and  most  honourable  order 
of  subjects."  But  the  first  business  was  to  crush 
out  the  spirit  of  local  initiation  and  individual 
freedom.  '*  In  Etruria,  in  Greece  and  in  Gaul," 
says  Gibbon,  "  it  was  the  first  care  of  the  Senate  to 
dissolve  those  dangerous  confederacies  which  taught 
mankind  that,  as  the  Roman  arts  prevailed  by 
division,  they  might  be  resisted  by  union.  Those 
princes  whom  the  ostentation  of  gratitude  or  gene- 
rosity permitted  for  a  while  to  hold  a  precarious 
sceptre,  were  dismissed  from  their  thrones  as  soon  as 
they  had  performed  their  appointed  task  of  fashion- 
ing to  the  yoke  the  vanquished  nation.  The  free 
states  and  cities  which  had  embraced  the  cause  of 
182 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 
Rome  were  rewarded  with  a  nominal  alliance  and 
insensibly  sunk  into  real  servitude." 

The  centre  of  the  whole  system  was  Rome. 
Thence  all  orders  issued,  thither  all  eyes  were 
turned.  "  The  public  authority  was  everywhere 
exercised  by  the  Ministers  of  the  Senate  and  of  the 
Emperor,  and  that  authority  was  absolute  and  with- 
out control."  By  these  means  the  spirit  of  liberty, 
denied  all  exercise,  was  gradually  exterminated, 
and  as  it  died  down  a  series  of  gifts  and  privileges, 
administered  on  a  sliding  scale  according  to  the 
docility  of  the  subject,  introduced  a  feeling  of 
loyalty  and  pride  of  quite  another  kind.  The 
"  civis  Romanus  sum  "  pride  of  Roman  citizenship, 
so  far  from  having  anything  to  do  with  liberty  and 
independence,  was  bought  by  the  sacrifice  of  liberty 
and  independence.  It  was  the  pride  of  serving  or 
assisting  in  some  humble  capacity,  or  at  least  of 
having  one's  existence  recognised  by,  and  being  on 
friendly  terms  with,  a  tremendous  and  imposing 
organisation  which  could  bestow  important  benefits 
or  inflict  terrible  penalties. 

The  result  of  this  system  of  control,  pursued 
patiently,  tactfully  and  implacably  for  several 
centuries,  was  that  in  Europe  the  spirit  of  liberty 
was  literally  killed  out.  The  individual  was  sunk  in 
the  system,  and  when  the  system  broke  up,  when 
Rome  herself  was  no  longer  capable  of  diffusing 
energy  and  exercising  control,  the  entire  fabric 
collapsed  and  fell  to  the  ground.  In  the  separate 
parts  of  it  there  existed  no  life,  no  capacity  for 
independent  action,  and  not  the  direct  necessity, 
not  the  instinct  of    self-preservation   even,  could 

183 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
galvanise  into  such  independent  action  those  great 
provinces  which  had  been  accustomed  for  centuries 
to  have  all  the  strings  that  moved  them  pulled  from 
Rome.  There  is  a  singular  example  of  this  helpless- 
ness, which  is  quoted  by  Guizot  in  one  of  his  lectures, 
and  which  occurs  in  a  despatch  addressed  in  the 
year  418  by  the  Roman  Emperor  to  the  Prefect  of 
Gaul.  I  need  not  quote  the  despatch.  The  object 
of  it  was  to  establish  in  Central  Gaul,  with  its  head- 
quarters at  Aries,  a  kind  of  representative  govern- 
ment which  might  rouse  the  country  to  its  own 
defence.  The  attempt  failed  owing  to  the  fact  that 
none  of  the  towns  or  provinces  took  the  slightest 
interest  in  it.  No  one  went  to  Aries;  no  one 
elected  deputies.  Rome  had  done  her  work  too 
well.  The  provinces  had  become  so  inured  to 
control  that  it  had  come  to  be  the  only  form  of 
government  conceivable  to  them.  That  they  them- 
selves, that  their  own  individual  inhabitants,  could 
exercise  rights  of  their  own,  combine  among  them- 
selves, provide  for  their  own  safety,  and  act  on  their 
own  initiative,  was  an  idea  they  were  not  capable  of 
entertaining. 

What  1  would  ask  the  reader  to  pause  and  notice 
here  is  the  accuracy  with  which  this  character  of 
the  Empire  is  reflected  in  its  architecture.  That 
architecture  is  usually  held  to  testify  to  the  greatness 
and  power  of  Rome's  dominion.  It  does  so,  no 
doubt,  but  it  reveals  also  the  nature  of  that  dominion. 
Its  chief  characteristic  is  its  deadly  and  vast  mono- 
tony. Local  conditions  count  for  nothing  in  it. 
It  is  impossible  to  trace  the  slightest  record,  in 
these  theatres  and  amphitheatres  and  temples  and 
184 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

triumphal  arches,  which  adorned  the  Empire  from 
one  end  to  the  other,  of  thecharacter  of  the  inhabitants 
of  that  particular  country  or  neighbourhood.  The 
likes  and  dislikes  of  the  people,  national  usages  and 
customs,  traditions  or  superstitions,  the  influences 
of  climate  or  of  scenery,  nay,  the  influence  of  time 
itself,  all  go  for  nothing  in  Roman  architecture.  It 
suggests  the  idea  of  having  been  turned  out  by  some 
great  central  factory  and  forwarded  to  the  different 
parts  of  the  Empire  as  need  arose.  Near  the  little 
village  of  Sbeitla,  overlooking  from  the  southern- 
most spurs  of  the  Aures  the  distant  expanse  of  the 
Sahara,  I  once  came  quite  unexpectedly  upon  the 
well-preserved  remains  of  several  of  these  Roman 
temples.  In  that  land  of  clear  skies  and  fierce  heat, 
of  palm-trees  and  tents  and  melancholy  wastes  of 
sand,  one  might  expect  the  local  genius  to  reveal 
itself.  But  no  !  these  columns  and  architraves  and 
friezes,  these  ugly  composite  capitals  and  the  solid 
blocks  of  masonry  would  have  been  equally  in  place 
in  the  Roman  Forum.  Even  the  quality  and  tricks 
of  workmanship,  the  use  of  the  drill  as  a  cheap  and 
expeditious  means  for  emphasising  the  sculpture, 
and  the  loading  of  the  architraves  with  misplaced 
ornament,  followed  the  Roman  model.  Nothing  is 
to  be  learnt  here  of  the  history  of  Sbeitla  or  of 
its  inhabitants.  On  all  those  matters  of  human 
character  and  human  life  of  which  architecture  has 
usually  so  much  to  tell  us,  Roman  architecture  is 
dumb.  It  knows  nothing  of  man  and  can  tell  us 
nothing  of  him.  It  can  utter  but  one  word,  and 
that  word  is  "  Rome." 

Here,  then,  is.  visibly  at  work  in  architecture  the 

»85 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

same  influence  which  was  so  strongly  operative  in 
life' — the  influence  of  routine  and  cut-and-dried 
official  system.  It  was,  of  course,  inevitable  that  the 
system  which  had  been  fatal  to  freedom  in  life 
should  be  fatal  to  it  in  art  also ;  but  what  is 
particularly  significant,  and  what  is  evident  from 
the  very  plentifulness  of  these  remains  and  their 
stringent  uniformity  of  character,  is  the  pride  the 
people  took  in  their  own  servitude.  There  was  no 
hardship  in  the  matter.  The  turning  out  of  these 
endless,  dull,  acanthus-leaved  capitals,  which  have 
since  adorned  or  disfigured  so  many  churches  and 
mosques,  evidently  seemed  to  the  sculptors  of  that 
age  the  only  legitimate  exercise  of  their  trade.  Art 
is  the  interpreter  of  life,  and  what  could  their  art  do 
more  for  them  than  express  their  entire  acquiescence 
in  the  great  administrative  system  which  had  so 
completely  absorbed  them  ?  One  may  fairly  con- 
jecture that  the  arch,  gateway  or  temple  of  Roman 
pattern  must  have  been  as  coveted  by  the  provincial 
towns  of  the  Empire  as  the  charters  and  privileges 
which  attested  their  freedom  were  by  our  later 
English  boroughs.  This  architecture,  with  its  im- 
mense dullness  and  perpetual  iteration  is,  in  short, 
no  symptom  of  the  active  tyranny  of  a  despotic 
government,  but  of  the  passive  tyranny  of  routine. 
It  suggests  not  oppression  but  apathy. 

It  was  upon  this  scene  of  unparalleled  listlessness 
and  torpor,  over  which  officialism  seemed  to  have 
woven  a  kind  of  enchantment,  that  the  hordes  of 
barbarism  descended.  In  mass  behind  mass,  Goth 
and  Visigoth,  and  Ostrogoth  and  Hun,  they  gathered 
along  the  Eastern  frontier  like  ridges  of  toppling 
X86 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

thunder-clouds  at  the  close  of  a  stifling  day.    They 
were  the  judgment  Rome  had  heaped  up  for  herself^ 
The    individual   energy  and   initiative,  which  the 
Empire  had  slowly  and  carefully  crushed  out  in  its 
own  citizens,  now  rose  up  from  without  to  destroy 
it.    It  has  been  usual  to  credit  these  wild  forefathers 
of  ours  with  profound,  mystical  intuitions,  to  imagine 
their  dark  and  troubled  spirits  lit  with  strange  gleams 
from  the   supernatural  world,  and  to  suggest  that 
they  were  visited  in  their  frozen  forests  by  impulses 
of  deeper  birth   than   fall  to  the  lot  of  average 
humanity.    Such  may  have  been  the  case  :  indeed, 
their  creative  work,  as  soon  as  they  undertook  it, 
clearly  proves  that  to  some  extent  it  was  the  case. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  observe  their  movements  and 
consider  the  effect  of  their  actions  without  perceiving 
that  the  instincts  which  really  in  the  main  governed 
their  conduct  were  by  no  means  of  a  mystical  or 
imaginative  kind,  but,  on   the  contrary,  intensely 
practical  and  to  the  purpose.    Races  of  robust  stock 
seem,  like  individuals  of  the  same  character,  to  go 
through  a  stage  where  virile  efficiency  is  a  sufficing 
ideal  ;  when  the  physical  qualities  of  strength,  fleet- 
ness,  endurance,  and  the  moral  qualities  of  fortitude, 
courage  and  daring  are  the  only  ones  worth  having. 
The  ideal  is  an  almost  purely  physical  one  ;  the  only 
virtues  acknowledged  being  those  which  tend  to  the 
free  and  effective  display  of  physical  efficiency.    It 
was  thus  with  the  barbarians.    Their  life  was  action, 
and  they  valued  exclusively,  or  at  least  primarily, 
such  qualities  as  took  effect  in  action.    On  the  other 
hand,  owing  to  this  very  restriction  of  ideas,  it  is 
obvious  that  the  barbaric  tribes  must  have  been, 

187 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
as  indeed  we  know  they  were,  altogether  lacking  in 
the  power  of  organisation.  In  their  migrations  and 
campaigns  we  perceive  the  motion  of  hordes,  not 
moved  by  disciplined  authority,  but  by  the  unanimity 
of  will  ot  individuals  all  equally  fierce  and  enter- 
prising. So  that  we  may  say  the  influx  of  the  new 
races  into  the  Roman  world  was  an  attack  on  a  system 
of  organisation  pure  and  simple  by  individual  energy 
pure  and  simple. 

What  followed  immediately  was  the  total  overthrow 
and  smash-up  of  organisation.  What  followed  by 
degrees  was  the  re-establishment  and  re-starting  of 
society  on  a  new  basis,  the  basis  of  individual 
initiative  and  the  recognition  of  the  rights  it  involved. 
The  coming  of  the  new  races  poured  a  fresh  tide  of 
vitality  through  the  Empire  ;  the  old  listlessness  and 
torpor  disappeared  and  free  play  for  the  individual 
became  the  ruling  principle  of  life.  This  is  the 
change  which  by-and-by  is  to  transcribe  itself 
with  literal  exactness  into  architecture.  This  tide 
of  vitality  is  to  be  poured  into  column  and  arch, 
and  we  are  to  see  a  style  still  Roman  and  passive, 
transfigured,  as  here  we  see  society,  with  startling 
suddenness,  into  a  style  expressing  in  every  line  a 
consuming  energy. 

But  why,  1  can  imagine  the  reader  objecting,  did 
not  all  this  happen  at  once  ?  When  the  life  that  had 
made  Roman  architecture  what  it  was  went,  why  did 
not  the  architecture  go  with  it  ?  When  the  new 
inspiration  came  in,  why  did  not  its  appropriate 
architecture  follow  it  ?  Why  did  half  a  dozen 
centuries  elapse  between  the  change  in  life  and  the 
change  in  architecture  ?  An  obvious,  though  not  a 
i8S 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

complete  answer,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
barbarians  were  barbarians,  and  incapable  therefore 
of  putting  their  ideas  into  stone  ;  but  a  moment's 
consideration  of  the  nature  of  art  itself  will  give  us 
a  reason  which  will  perhaps  lead  us  to  something 
more  definite. 

Art  is  always  a  somewhat  mysterious  subject  to 
deal  with,  but  we  may  say  this  about  it  with  some 
confidence,  that  it  never  manifests  itself  with  certainty, 
and  least  of  all  in  the  shape  of  a  great  architectural 
style,  until  it  has  behind  it  a  combined  and  united 
effort.  It  has  in  it  something  of  the  nature  of  a 
solution  of  life's  problem.  So  far  as  the  particular 
race  which  creates  it  is  concerned,  it  is  an  answer  to 
the  question  how  to  live.  And  for  this  very  reason 
a  great  creative  epoch  in  art  never  can  occur  where 
society  is  uncertain  of  itself  and  distracted  in  its 
aims.  Art  being  the  expression  of  a  solution,  it 
follows  that  the  solution  must  be  reached  in  life 
before  it  can  be  expressed  in  art.  There  have  been 
very  few  great  creative  epochs  in  art.  The  Greeks, 
we  may  almost  say,  lived  in  such  an  epoch.  But  to 
the  Greeks  was  given  in  their  own  way,  a  finite  way 
perhaps,  an  extraordinarily  clear  perception  of  what, 
so  far  as  they  were  concerned,  life  meant.  The 
Italian  Renaissance  was  another  creative  epoch, 
much  less  sure  of  itself,  it  is  true,  than  the  Greek, 
but  still  for  the  time  being  assured  that  in  its  novel 
sense  of  intellectual  expansion  lay  the  answer  to  hfe's 
problems.  For  the  time  being.  Renaissance  art  did, 
more  or  less  adequately,  express  the  life  of  its  age, 
and  was  therefore  genuine. 

But,  further,  all  manifestations  of  art,  even  those 

189 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN       ; 
quite  minor  and  subordinate  ones  which  are  more 
than  fashions,  but  less  than  genuine  creative  epochs, 
demand  an  effort  of  a  certain  weight  and  unanimity 
to  back  them.    For  example,  such  movements  as 
the  Louis  Quinze  and  Louis  Seize  periods  bear  wit- 
ness to  the  influence  which  at  that  time  was  supreme 
in  France,  the  influence  of  an  idle  and  luxurious 
upper  class  detached  from  yet  dominating  the  life  of 
the  nation.    So,  too,  if  the  English  aristocratic  style 
of  art  of  the  same  time  was  less  thorough  than  the 
French,  it  was  because  the  aristocratic  ideal  had  less 
completely  gained  a  hold  upon  English  than  upon 
French  life.     If  such  minor  manifestations  as  these 
seem  trivial  when  compared  with  the  great  art  epochs, 
the  reason  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  they  inter- 
pret the  life,  not  of  a  people  but  of  a  class.    Their 
importance  is  less  to  the  degree  in  which  the  convic- 
tion of  a  single  section  of  society  is  w^eaker  than  the 
conviction  of  the  whole  of  it.    In  each  case  the 
power  and  sincerity  of  the  movement  in  art  is  deter- 
mined by  the  extent  to  which  the  idea  inspiring  it 
has  already  possessed  itself  of  life  and  penetrated 
life.    An  idea  that  has  collected  a  great  deal  of  life 
will  inspire  a  robust  art.    An  idea  that  has  collected 
but  a  little  life  will  inspire  a  feeble  art.     But  always 
the  idea  must  have  established  itself  in  life,  and 
made  good  its  hold  upon  life  before  it  can  manifest 
itself  in  art. 

The  reader  will  see  why  I  emphasise  this.  In 
Gothic  architecture  the  Northern  nations  have  had 
their,  so  far,  one  and  only  great  creative  epoch.  It 
deserves  that  title,  for  it  had  behind  it,  if  ever  art 
had,  the  conviction  of  a  whole  people.  At  the  same 
190 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

time  the  important  thing  to  remember  about  it  is 
that  the  idea  it  embodies,  before  it  could  translate 
itself  into  art,  was  bound  to  work  itself  out  in  life, 
and  thoroughly  possess  itself  of  and  penetrate  life. 
Accordingly,  what  we  are  concerned  with  imme- 
diately is  the  working  out  of  the  Gothic  ideal  in  life. 
That  was  the  problem  at  which  the  new  races  were 
labouring  for  six  centuries  and  more. 

What  that  ideal  was  we  know.  In  his ''  Democracy 
and  Reaction  "  Mr.  Hobhouse  tells  us  that "  what  is 
spontaneous  in  a  people  [meaning  by  the  phrase 
what  is  instinctive  and  primitive,  a  racial  charac- 
teristic in  them]  is  always  the  source  of  life,  the 
well-spring  of  the  secret  forces  which  recruit  jaded 
civilisation."  What,  in  this  sense,  was  spontaneous 
in  the  northern  invaders  and  destined  to  recruit  the 
jaded  civilisation  of  the  Empire  was,  as  I  have 
already  pointed  out,  the  intense  personal  vitality 
and  energy  in  which  the  new-comers  were  so  rich. 
Their  mission  to  the  West  was  to  vindicate  the 
primary  truth  that  man  himself  is  greater  than  any 
routine  or  system  of  his  creation  ;  that  he  is  to  wield 
such  systems,  not  they  him.  To  a  world  lapped 
and  lulled  in  routine  they  came  to  preach  the  rough 
gospel  of  individual  initiative  and  freedom  of  action. 
This  was  their  unconscious  doctrine,  and  they 
preached  it  in  their  own  straightforward  way  not 
ineffectively.  So  long  as  tearing  up  and  clearing 
away  was  their  cue,  they  had  but  to  let  themselves 
go.  But  to  clear  the  ground  is  one  thing  :  to  rear 
and  reap  the  crop  another.  It  was  the  process  of 
constructing  a  society  and  evolving  a  scheme  of 
government  containing  as  its  vital  principle  their 

191 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

own  characteristic  theory  of  free  play  for  the  in« 
dividual  that  took  the  time. 

The  difficulties  before  them  were  enormous.  For 
four  or  five  centuries  after  their  first  appearance  the 
elements  of  which  the  new  society  was  to  be  com- 
posed were  never  at  rest.  Fresh  influxes  of  .bar- 
barians force  their  way  westward.  No  sooner  does 
a  settlement,  a  definite  form,  begin  to  emerge  out  of 
the  chaos  than  it  is  broken  up  and  swept  away  by 
a  new  combination  and  arrangement  of  its  material. 
Moreover,  the  invaders  had  not  only  the  refractori- 
ness of  society,  but  their  own  individual  refractori- 
ness to  order.  The  very  idea  of  an  organic  society 
presupposes  in  its  members  a  certain  power  of 
generalising,  of  deducing  abstract  principles,  of 
looking  at  life  impersonally ;  powers  which  the 
Gothic  races,  in  the  first  centuries  of  their  settle- 
ment, certainly  never  possessed.  Their  ideal  of  an 
unobstructed  physical  energy  would  probably  have 
meant  in  those  early  days,  translated  into  a  social 
principle,  little  more  than  the  liberty  to  indulge  in 
their  own  furious  whims  and  passions.  It  had  to 
go  through  a  long  course  of  tempering  and  refining 
before  it  could  emerge  as  a  principle  of  national 
freedom  capable  of  forming  a  social  bond. 

Many  forms  of  government  came  and  went  in  the 
interval ;  many  experiments  in  the  ordering  and 
casting  of  society  were  tried  and  failed.  None 
of  these  experiments  embodied  the  Gothic  idea ; 
none  of  them  involved  the  unanimity  necessary  to 
back  up  a  creative  epoch  in  art.  In  what  place 
and  what  time  in  Europe  from  the  fifth  to  the 
twelfth  centuries  can  we  imagine  such  an  epoch 
192 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 
occurring?  What  would  it  have  had  to  say? 
What  would  have  been  the  solution  it  would  have 
proposed  ?  Can  we  imagine  it  appearing  during 
the  reign  of  Charlemagne,  that  rule  of  military 
despotism  over  social  anarchy  ?  Or  during  any  of 
the  inflexible  tyrannies  that  make  up  the  history  of 
the  German  Empire  ?  Or  in  a  Europe  disintegrated 
by  the  feudal  system  and  parcelled  out  into  a 
number  of  estates,  each  one  the  theatre  of  miniature 
revolt  and  insurrection  ?  Can  we  lay  our  finger  any- 
where during  all  these  centuries  on  a  society  of 
which  we  can  say  that  it  knows  its  own  mind,  that 
it  is  animated  by  a  definite  conviction,  that  it  has  a 
message  to  deliver,  a  thought  to  utter  ?  Evidently 
we  cannot.  During  these  centuries  the  social 
material  is  either  in  violent  commotion,  or,  if  settled 
or  settling,  has  not  yet  found  the  law  of  its  nature. 
It  has  nowhere  yet  put  into  life  the  principle  it  was 
charged  with.  Under  such  circumstances  it  would 
be  obviously  impossible  for  a  great  creative  epoch 
in  art  to  occur.  The  makings  of  such  an  epoch 
are  non-existent. 

We  must  pass  on  until  we  find  these  makings. 
There  is  not  the  least  doubt  as  to  the  moment  of 
their  establishment.  It  is  a  trait  of  the  Gothic  spirit, 
as  much  in  life  as  in  art,  that  it  is  obvious  and 
unmistakable  in  all  its  doings.  The  barbaric  ideal 
was  no  profound  and  subtle  affair,  difficult  to  track 
and  analyse,  but  an  outward  matter  of  action  and 
politics.  Its  natural  tendency  was  to  work  itself  out 
into  a  social  and  political  system  safeguarding  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  the  individual,  and  its  ability 
to  do  this  is  what  marks  its  establishment  in  life. 

N  193 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
The  systems  we  have  glanced  at,  of  Charlemagne  and 
others,  were  directed  to  checking  this  tendency. 
Their  whole  aim  and  object  was  to  prevent  the  new 
ideal  from  working  itself  out  into  life  at  all.  The 
tradition  inspiring  them  as  governments  was  the 
tradition  of  the  extinct  Empire. 

It  is  not  until  we  come  to  the  national  movements 
of  the  twelfth  century  that  we  find  these  obstructions 
overcome,  and  the  Gothic  thought  victoriously 
asserting  itself.  The  ideas  of  the  common  weal — 
of  public  right,  of  a  king  not  despotic  but  as  "grand 
juge  de  paix  du  pays,"  of  liberty  and  justice  as 
inalienable  possessions  of  the  people — now  for  the 
first  time  makes  its  appearance  as  a  basis  of  govern- 
ment. It  is  the  same  old  idea  that  the  barbarians 
have  always  had,  that  they  brought  with  them  out 
of  their  forests,  that  Rome  made  way  for.  But  it 
has  expanded  and  grown,  it  has  been  adapted  to  the 
needs  of  a  community,  and  it  is  expressed  now,  not 
in  its  raw  form  of  individual  licence,  but  as  a  social 
and  national  bond.  In  a  word  it  has  passed  into 
life,  it  has  a  united  effort  behind  it,  it  has  become 
capable  of  artistic  expression. 

That  expression  followed  soon  enough ;  indeed, 
both  these  final  acts,  the  assertion  of  nationality  and 
the  rise  of  the  national  style,  are  executed  with  all 
that  decision  which  belongs  to  the  Gothic  character. 
Green  tells  us  that  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  "marks  the 
period  of  amalgamation  when  neighbourhood  and 
traffic  and  intermarriage  drew  Englishmen  and 
Normans  rapidly  into  a  single  people."  He  adds, 
"a  national  feeling  was  then  springing  up  before 
which  the  barriers  of  the  older  feudalism  were  to  be 
194 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

swept  away."  In  referring  the  rise  of  nationalism 
to  this  time  Green  endorses  the  common  decision 
of  history.  What  is  important  to  note  is  that  its 
rise  signified  the  recognition  of  public  liberty  as 
a  governing  principle.  The  liberty  of  the  citizen 
was  the  foundation  on  which  the  European  nations 
have  been  built.  The  "national  feeling"  was  the 
consciousness  of  freedom  as  a  bond  of  union 
among  the  people.  There  is  no  need  to  insist  on 
this.  The  signs  of  developing  nationality  are  un- 
mistakable. The  growth  all  over  the  country  of  free 
towns  with  self -won  rights  and  liberties  and  charters, 
the  rise  of  the  influence  of  the  commons,  the  blows 
aimed  at  the  throttling  influence  of  feudalism,  are 
among  the  unmistakable  signs  that  the  struggle 
towards  national  unity  was  a  struggle  to  assert  the 
supremacy  of  the  idea  of  freedom  in  life,  and  to 
safeguard  the  rights  and  Hberties  of  the  individual 
citizen.  In  short,  the  fact  is,  I  think,  clear  that 
nationalisation  was  the  final  vindication  of  the 
Gothic  ideal  as  a  matter  of  life ;  so  that  if,  having 
once  possessed  ourselves  of  the  dominant  charac- 
teristic of  the  barbaric  races,  we  were  asked  to 
determine  the  moment  when  that  characteristic 
established  its  control  over  life,  we  should  have  no 
hesitation,  as  we  reviewed  the  succession  of  events 
from  the  fifth  to  the  twelfth  centuries,  in  laying  our 
finger  on  the  rise  of  national  consciousness  and 
saying,  "  This  was  the  moment." 

And  in  pointing  to  the  moment  when  the  Gothic 
ideal  came  to  the  front  in  life,  we  point  also  to  the 
moment  when  it  declared  itself  in  art.  The  reign 
of  Henry  II.,  when  the  Gothic  idea  worked  itself 

^95 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

out  in  life,  lasted  from  1154  to  1189.  The  new  style 
of  architecture  in  which  that  idea  embodied  itself 
dates  from  the  same  time,  that  is  from  the  last 
twenty  years  of  the  [century.  Fergusson,  accepting 
Canterbury  as  the  first  example,  gives  the  year  1175 
as  the  date  of  its  first  appearance.  Mr,  Russell 
Sturgis  and  other  authorities  give  1190;  others 
1 185.  Such  minute  discrepancies  are  immaterial. 
We  shall  be  safe  in  referring  the  event  to  about  the 
end  of  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  We  shall  be  safe, 
that  is,  in  saying  that  the  manifestation  in  art  of  the 
Gothic  idea  came  directly  it  felt  the  weight  and 
unanimity  of  the  national  impulse  behind  it. 

But,  I  dare  say  it  will  be  objected,  Gothic  did  not 
have  its  birth  in  England  :  France  was  the  nursery 
of  the  new  style.  Well,  if  we  turn  to  France  we 
shall  find  the  same  change  in  society  occurring  there 
and  the  same  working  out  in  life  of  the  Gothic 
principle  going  on  there  as  we  see  in  England,  only 
declaring  itself,  as  it  ought  to  do,  rather  earlier. 
French  historians  date  the  rise  of  national  sentiment 
in  France  from  the  reign  of  Louis  le  Gros,  just  as 
confidently  as  Green  dates  it  in  England  from  the 
reign  of  Henry  II.  All  the  forces  which  brought 
about  that  development,  the  rise  of  free  communes, 
the  breaking  up  of  feudalism,  the  change  in  the 
character  of  kingship  from  a  military  despotism  to 
what  Guizot  calls  "  the  guarantee  and  protector  of 
public  order,  of  universal  justice  and  of  the  common 
interest,"  occurred  a  little  earlier  in  France  than  in 
England.  These  things  give  to  the  reign  of  Louis 
le  Gros  its  "  caractere  tout  a  fait  nouveau,"  as  Guizot 
describes  it,  among  the  hitherto  existing  govern- 
196 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

ments  of  Europe,  and  incline  French  historians  to 
date  the  history  of  France  as  a  European  nation 
from  that  time. 

Accordingly  we  find  this  thought  which  the  bar- 
barians brought  with  them  into  the  West  of  the 
sacredness  of  individual  effort  and  its  right  to  free 
play  assuming  control  of  life  and  constituting  a 
national  bond  in  France  just  in  the  same  way  as  it 
does  in  England.  France,  however,  takes  prece- 
dence. The  Gothic  idea  had  its  collective  impulse 
behind  it  in  France  before  it  had  in  England,  and 
consequently  found  its  artistic  expression  there 
earlier  than  it  did  with  us.  Louis  le  Gros  reigned 
from  1108  to  1 137.  French  Gothic  may  be  dated 
from  the  foundation  of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Denis  in 
1 144. 

But  French  Gothic  is  not  only  earlier  than 
English  ;  it  is  also  purer.  What  France  shows  us  is 
that  the  national  idea  is  not  to  be  thought  of  in 
connection  with  defined  frontiers  and  the  aspect  of 
the  completed  national  form.  A  nation  is  not  a 
mere  mass  of  territory  of  a  certain  extent  and  shape. 
This  material  definition  is  subsequent,  and  its 
ultimate  form  more  or  less  accidental.  The  unifying 
influence  is  a  common  idea  acting  as  a  common 
bond,  and '  in  France  we  see  this  action  working 
quite  independently  of  territorial  extent  and  dimen- 
sions. France  does  not  attain  the  outward  aspect 
and  form  of  a  nation  until  long  after  England  has 
attained  it;  but  the  principle  is  active,  the  pull  is 
being  exerted,  earlier  in  France  than  in  England. 

Thus  at  the  time  of  our  Gothic  outburst  in  1190 
England  was  to  all  appearances  an  already  united 

197 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
nation,  while  fifty  years  earlier,  when  that  outburst 
occurred  in  France,  the  French  kingdom  consisted 
only  of  a  little  nucleus  round  the  I le-de- France,  a 
patch  of  territory  not  half  as  big  as  Ireland.  Up  to 
some  thirty  years  before  that  date  nothing  had  fore- 
told that  that  particular  spot  of  earth  was  cradling  a 
great  idea.  The  Capets  had  possessed  hardly  a 
semblance  of  authority  over  the  feudal  princes  of 
the  rest  of  the  country,  and  their  own  independence 
was  perpetually  threatened  by  Norman  aggression. 
It  was  Louis  le  Gros,  as  we  have  already  seen,  or 
rather,  to  be  exact,  it  was  his  minister,  Suger,  who 
first  joined  the  kingly  office  to  that  instinct  which 
was  then  working  merely  as  a  social  force  among 
the  rising  communes,  and  thus  turned  it  into  a 
governing  ideal  and  made  a  national  bond  of  it. 
From  that  moment  an  influence  of  a  new  and 
decisive  character  emanates  from  this  centre.  The 
kingdom  seems  endowed  suddenly  with  a  power 
of  assimilation.  Its  influence  is  magnetic,  and  it 
increases  and  extends  itself  not  so  much  by  con- 
quest as  by  attracting  the  surrounding  provinces 
to  itself. 

And  what  is  further  worth  observing  in  this 
national  extension  in  France  is  this,  that  although 
the  same  struggle  to  realise  the  same  ideal  was  being 
carried  on  by  the  French  people  outside  the  national 
area  as  within  it,  yet  nothing  of  this  could  take  effect 
in  art,  or  vent  itself  in  appropriate  architectural 
expression,  until  national  concentration  acted  upon 
it.  I  have  tried  the  experiment  of  tracking  and 
gauging  this  extension  of  the  national  idea  by  draw- 
ing a  map  showing  the  order  of  the  rise  of  Gothic 
198 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

buildings.  The  first  example  occurs  appropriately 
in  the  royal  chapel  at  St.  Denis,  close  to  Paris.  Then 
we  have  Notre  Dame  in  Paris  itself,  followed  by 
Senlis,  Rheims,  Chartres,  Rouen  ;  and  the  movement 
spreads  till  we  have  some  score  of  buildings 
registered,  and  our  map  looks  like  a  target  with  the 
marks  of  shots  scattered  over  it,  all  aimed  at,  and 
thickest  nearest  to  the  bull's-eye,  Paris.  What  with 
political  complications  and  the  uncertainty  of  the 
date  of  buildings,  it  is  not,  perhaps,  practicable  to 
trace  with  exactness  the  national  progress  in  the 
national  style.  But  we  can  at  least  say  with  certainty 
that  the  new  style  in  architecture  had  its  birth  in  the 
very  centre  of  the  little  national  vortex,  that  it  came 
into  being  with  the  national  idea,  and  from  this 
centre,  hand  in  hand  with  the  national  idea  itself, 
overflowed  the  neighbouring  provinces. 

French  Gothic  is,  then,  more  a  Gothic  of  the  pure 
idea  than  English.  English  Gothic  shows  in  itself 
something  of  those  mixed  influences  of  contact  and 
blind  force  which  went  to  make  the  nation,  and  which 
were  due  to  the  arbitrary  mould  within  which  the 
national  impulse  had  to  work.  The  English  races 
were  not  drawn  by  a  central  attraction  only.  They 
were  drawn,  but  they  were  hammered  and  pounded 
as  well.  And  their  national  architecture  shows  this. 
Not  only  is  it  not  so  logical,  not  so  penetrated  by  the 
spirit  of  energy  proper  to  the  style,  not  only  does  it 
fail  to  carry  out  the  meaning  it  was  meant  to  carry 
out  with  the  completeness  and  absoluteness  of 
French  Gothic,  but  you  cannot  in  the  same  way 
follow  its  progress  from  the  centre  and  observe  it 
keeping  pace  with  the  spread  of  the  idea.    You  can 

199 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
say  of  English  Gothic  that  it  arose  with,  or  imme- 
diately after,  the  sense  of  nationality,  following  it  as 
sharply  and  abruptly  as  the  report  follows  the 
explosion.  And  perhaps  this  is  enough  to  say.  But 
with  French  Gothic  you  can  say  more.  You  can 
say  that  it  springs  into  being  with  the  sense  of 
nationality  at  a  given  point,  and  that,  as  the  sense 
of  nationality  spreads,  as  the  struggling,  unruly  and 
distracted  social  elements  gather  round  it  and 
concentrate  and  combine  into  an  ever-enlarging 
homogeneous  body,  so,  too,  Gothic  extends  its  sphere 
of  operations,  everywhere  answering  to,  and  made 
possible  by,  the  bond  of  national  cohesion.  The 
conclusion  pointed  to  is  that  just  in  so  far  as  the  new 
races  could  work  out  their  ideal  as  a  matter  of  life 
by  making  a  national  bond  of  it,  was  it  granted 
to  them  to  give  it  utterance  in  its  appropriate 
architecture. 

Moreover,  if  we  interpret  Gothic  architecture  in 
this  sense,  as  the  embodiment  in  its  moment  of 
triumph  of  the  great  thought  with  which  the  new 
races  had  invigorated  the  old  world,  we  shall  the  more 
readily  sympathise  with  the  extraordinary  popular 
zeal  and  enthusiasm  which  the  new  style  excited 
and  understand  the  rapidity  with  which  it  established 
itself.  Added  to  much  that  is  unique  in  it,  Gothic 
has  this,  that  it  was  built,  so  one  may  almost  say, 
without  the  help  of  architects.  In  spite  of  the 
appalling  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  and  the  daring 
innovations  involved,  any  one  could  build  Gothic. 
The  people  needed  no  teaching  in  the  style.  They 
seemed  already  to  know  all  about  it,  and  the  archi- 
tecture consequently  rose,  not  slowly  and  by  degrees, 

200 


This  gives  a  fairly  adequate  idea  of  the  continuity  of 
Gothic  forms ^  and  the  sense  of  concerted  energy  and 
movement  which  that  contimiity  produces 

FRENCH  CATHEDRAL  CHOIR  p.  2co 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 

but  spontaneously,  with  one  impulse,  rather  Hke  the 
uplifting  of  some  tremendous  chorus  than  the  slow 
setting  of  stone  upon  stone. 

All  this,  I  say,  seems  natural  and  intelligible  if  we 
regard  the  style  as  the  visible  presentment  of  the 
people's  own  profoundest  convictions  and  deepest 
racial  characteristics.  That  art  comes  easily  which 
expresses  the  thought  that  has  thoroughly  penetrated 
life.  It  is  there  the  difficulty  lies — not  in  the  artistic 
expression,  but  in  the  accumulation  of  the  weight  of 
conviction  behind  it.  The  obstructions  in  the  way 
of  Gothic  were  overcome  and  its  accomplishment 
made  easy  and  inevitable,  not  by  the  builders  and 
masons  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  but 
by  a  score  of  preceding  generations  of  our  rugged 
forefathers  who  held  by  the  instinct  of  their  race, 
and,  in  the  face  of  many  obstacles,  worked  their 
thoughts  slowly  out  into  a  practicable  scheme  of  life. 
These  were  the  real  Gothic  architects.  The  thought 
that  had  attained  to  such  a  hold  on  life  as  theirs 
had  fell  into  stone  almost  of  its  own  accord.  The 
resulting  architecture  was  the  expression  of  a  solution 
already  arrived  at. 

I  cannot  therefore  but  think  that  this  extraordinary 
transformation — the  rise  of  Gothic  out  of  the  old 
Romanesque  style — is  an  event  which  admits  of  a 
more  satisfying  explanation  than  is  to  be  derived 
from  a  mere  examination  of  the  material  used,  or 
the  laws  by  which  that  material  is  disposed.  The 
fascination  of  architecture,  as  of  all  art,  lies  in  its 
application  to  life.  Nor  is  this  a  difficult  or  subtle 
operation,  or  one  involving  any  special  technical 
knowledge.    Any  one  who  compares  the  vigorous 

201 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
vitality  of  an  English  borough  of  the  thirteenth 
century  with  the  torpor  and  apathy  of  a  town  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  will  have  presented  to  his  mind  at  a 
single  view  the  full  effect  of  the  change  wrought  by 
the  new  idea  which  the  Gothic  races  had  introduced 
into  life.  He  will  easily  perceive  that,  though  this 
idea  might  work  itself  out  in  many  ways  and  many 
directions,  yet  always  the  root  was  the  same,  and 
strikes  back  to  that  ideal  of  personal  energy  which 
the  new  races  had  burst  into  the  West  with  centuries 
before.  But  any  one,  too,  who  looks  from  the 
contrast  in  life  to  the  contrast  in  architecture  must 
see  that  the  same  change  is  embodied  here,  that  the 
listless  apathy  of  the  Roman  town  is  embodied  in  the 
buildings  it  erected,  while  the  personal,  human  energy 
of  the  Gothic  races  breathes  in  every  line  of  their  own 
peculiar  style.  To  realise  that  connection,  to  perceive 
the  intimate  relationship  between  the  character  of 
an  age  and  the  forms  into  which  it  casts  itself,  is  to 
infuse  into  the  subject  of  architecture  a  vitality  of 
interest  which  no  technical  explanations  can  obscure 
ior  a  moment.  Between  the  forms  and  shapes  of 
architecture  and  the  instincts  and  impulses  of  human 
character  there  exists  a  natural  affinity  or  aversion 
according  as  those  forms  and  shapes  embody  or  fail 
to  embody  such  human  instincts.  To  search  for 
the  origin  of  forms,  as  forms,  is  a  wearisome  and 
sterile  task.  Let  us  rather  search  for  the  dominant 
thought  of  an  age,  and  accept  that  as  the  origin  of 
the  appropriate  forms  in  which  it  will  inevitably 
clothe  itself.  The  greater  the  creative  epoch  and 
the  stronger  its  convictions,  the  more  easily  and 
irresistibly  will  it  seize  upon  the  forms  appropriate 
202 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 
to  such  convictions  and  the  less  need  have  we  of 
scientific  explanation  or  research. 

I  would  add  one  word  of  qualification.  Do  not 
let  the  reader  suppose  that  in  what  I  have  written  I 
imagine  myself  to  have  ^'accounted  for"  and 
exhaustively  explained  Gothic  architecture.  That 
is  far  from  being  the  case.  One  whole  side  of  the 
subject,  the  deep  devotional  and  contemplative 
instinct  which  runs  through  mediaeval  life,  so 
curiously  contrasting  with  its  vigorous  energy  of 
action,  which  expressed  itself  in  life  in  the  yearning 
after  monastic  seclusion  and  in  art  in  the  solemn 
glowing  tints  of  the  stained  glass  of  the  period — 
this  side  of  the  subject  I  have  not  in  the  present 
volume  even  touched  upon.  All  I  have  aspired  here 
to  do  is  to  take  what  seems  to  me  the  most  character- 
istic and  vital  trait  in  the  Gothic  epoch  and  to  show 
in  what  degree  that  motive  inspires  Gothic  architec- 
ture. It  is  this  motive  that  we  English  people,  if  w^e 
would  rightly  understand  the  history  of  our  own 
country,  have  such  deep  need  to  appreciate. 

At  present  it  is  not  appreciated  at  all.  Professor 
Simpson,  in  his  recently  written  work  on  architec- 
ture, remarks  that  the  word  Gothic  "  conveys  nothing 
as  to  the  origin  of  the  style  and  is  meaningless." 
Professor  Simpson  is  a  great  authority  on  this 
subject,  and  has  as  much  to  do  as  any  one,  prob- 
ably, with  dictating  the  ideas  and  theories  which 
are  accepted  at  the  present  time.  Moreover,  he  does 
not  in  this  case  argue  or  suggest,  but  pronounces  a 
final  verdict.  He  has  so  many  authorities  with  him 
that  he  can  afford  to  be  summary. 

As  against  this  I   ask  the  reader  to  look  at  the 

203 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
facts  for  himself.  What  was  the  Gothic  contribu- 
tion to  life  ?  We  use  the  word  Gothic,  of  course,  as 
the  obvious  and  convenient  appellation  for  the  whole 
succession  of  germanic  barbarians  which  Rome's 
declining  strength  admitted  into  the  West.  What 
was  the  contribution  to  life  of  those  races  ?  To 
answer  that  question  we  must  look  first  at  society 
as  it  was  under  the  Roman  Empire  and  next 
at  society  as  it  emerged  from  the  Dark  Ages 
and  after  the  Gothic  influence  had  acted  upon 
it.  The  difference  between  the  two  is  the  Gothic 
contribution. 

Let  the  reader  compare  them.  On  the  one 
hand  he  sees  a  community  swayed  and  controlled 
by  a  huge  official  system ;  a  community  in  which 
the  last  traces  of  popular  liberty  have  evaporated 
and  upon  which  a  spirit  of  absolute  lethargy  and 
inertia  has  settled.  On  the  other  hand  he  sees  a 
community  instinct  and  glowing  with  local  and 
individual  initiative ;  a  community  in  which  the 
popular  sentiment,  consolidated  in  guilds  and 
boroughs,  asserts  against  all  forms  of  official  or 
class  tyranny  its  free  right  to  self-government. 
This  human  vitality  translated  into  political  action 
is  one  with  the  instinct  for  liberty,  for  my  right 
of  free  action,  of  doing  and  being  and  saying  the 
thing  I  will,  is  identical  with  my  resolve  to  resist 
any  form  of  tyrannous  control  and  to  assert  my 
right  to  be  self-governing.  This  is  the  deepest 
instinct  of  our  race,  and  that  in  it  which  is 
characteristic.  It  is  this  which  animates  English 
history  and  gives  it  a  definite  purpose  and  aim,  and 
no  one,  failing  to  grasp  this  fact,  can  be  said  to  be  in 
204 


The  exuberance  of  the  Gothic  energy  is  seefi  in  nothing  more 
strikingly  than  in  the  bursting  of  the  vaulting  shafts  into  the 
ribs  of  the  groining 

VAULT  OF  EXETER  CATHEDRAL 


p.   204 


THE  GOTHIC  CONTRIBUTION 
touch  with  that  instinct  and  with  that  aim.  This  I 
call  the  Gothic  contribution  to  life,  and  will  any 
one  who  watches  with  his  mind's  eye  the  hardy 
vitality  of  mediaeval  citizenship  and  contrasts  it  with 
the  poHtical  lethargy  of  the  Roman  colony  deny 
the  justice  of  the  definition  ? 

But  equally,  will  any  one  recall  the  styles  of 
architecture  in  which  these  two  social  states  have 
expressed  themselves  and  question  that  in  these 
styles  we  have  the  very  attributes  of  each  society 
embodied  in  stone  ?  What  expression  of  the 
ponderous  routine  of  the  Roman  system  could  be 
more  appropriate  than  the  mechanically  reiterated 
features  of  Roman  architecture  ?  What  expression 
of  the  mediaeval  vigour  and  virility  could  be  more 
lifelike  than  the  almost  fiercely  energetic  features  of 
Gothic  ?  Do  not  the  minster  and  the  cathedral 
palpitate  with  the  very  same  vitality  which  is 
animating  the  boroughs  in  which  they  arise  ?  If 
the  reader  still  doubts  let  him  trace  the  connection 
in  detail.  He  will  find  that  not  only  does  the 
mediaeval  style  embody  all  that  the  Goths  possessed 
and  all  that  the  Romans  lacked,  not  only  does  it 
arise  in  Europe  punctually  at  the  moment  when 
the  Gothic  ideal  obtained  control  of  life,  not  only  is 
it  participated  in  by  whole  populations  with  an 
eagerness  which  marks  it  as  the  response  to  a 
racial  instinct :  but  also  he  will  find  that  it  keeps 
touch  always  with  the  barbaric  element  in  the 
population,  that  it  is  strong  where  that  element  is 
strong,  weak  where  that  element  is  weak,  and  non- 
existent where  that  element  is  non-existent.  Where 
the  seed  is  sown  the  crop  springs,  and  wherever  the 

205 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
Gothic  race  has  settled  there  and  there  only  does 
the  Gothic  style  arise. 

And  yet  in  face  of  facts  like  these  the  professors 
of  architecture  assure  us  that  the  word  Gothic 
conveys  nothing  as  to  the  origin  of  the  style  and 
is  meaningless.  I  leave  the  matter  to  the  reader's 
consideration.  In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  have  to 
speak  of  certain  aspects  of  mediaeval  life  and  art 
not  hitherto  touched  on.  But  these  will  not  be  of 
a  kind  to  weaken  the  conclusion  arrived  at  so  far. 
The  difference  between  the  Roman  colony  and  the 
mediaeval  borough  is  the  Gothic  contribution  to  life, 
and  Gothic  architecture  is  the  embodiment  of  that 
contribution  in  stone. 

Note.— It  is  desirable  to  mark  clearly  the  difference  in 
principle  between  the  Greek  treatment  of  the  arch  as  illus- 
trated in  S.  Sophia  and  the  Gothic  treatment  of  it.  To  the 
Greeks  it  was  a  feature  in  arcuated  construction,  of  which 
kind  of  construction  the  dome  is  the  inevitable  crown  and 
summary.  To  the  Gothic  races  the  arch  was  a  delight  in 
itself  because  of  its  inherent  activity  and  energy.  It  was  this 
characteristic  rather  than  the  idea  of  arcuated  construction 
as  a  whole  which  they  set  themselves  to  develop.  Their 
treatment  has  nothing  of  the  Greek  intellectual  thoroughness, 
but  within  its  own  limits  is  carried  out  with  extraordinary 
vigour. 


206 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  vertical  and  horizontal  styles  of  architecture  :  What 
they  stand  for  :  Energy  ideaUsed  in  the  twelfth  century  : 
Chivalry,  ballad  poetry,  crusades,  Gothic  architecture  :  Break- 
up of  the  system  before  advance  of  intellect  :  The  classic  note 
in  architecture  :  Its  breadth  :  Correspondence  of  the  quality 
with  classic  intellectualism  :  Spaciousness  of  classic  thought 
and  classic  buildings  :  Survival  of  this  trait  among  Latin 
races  :  Italy's  reception  of  the  Gothic  style  :  Consistency  of 
her  criticism  :  She  insists  on  horizontal  expansion  :  Rejects 
Gothic  as  inadequate  to  intellectual  ideas  :  Revives  classic 
proportions  as  more  appropriate  :  The  case  of  France  :  In- 
tellectual awakening  there,  too,  followed  by  adoption  of 
spacious  forms  :  The  Renaissance  in  England  :  Its  insular 
character  :  The  expansion  or  contraction  of  architecture 
expresses  the  play  of  the  mind  of  Europe 

PRACTICALLY  all  the  architecture  of  the  West  is 
traceable  to  two  main  sources — to  the  mediaeval 
source  or  the  classic.  Under  classic  we  include  not 
Greek  and  Roman  only,  but  those  round-arched 
styles  which,  under  the  general  title  of  Roman- 
esque perpetuated  Roman  tradition  in  Europe.  By 
mediaeval  we  mean  simply  Gothic  in  its  various 
manifestations.  The  main  mass  and  body  of  Euro- 
pean architecture  is  made  up  of  these  two.  There 
are  found  here  and  there  touches  of  Byzantine,  the 
architecture  of  colour;  there  are  here  and  there 
found  touches  of  Saracenic,  itself  belonging  to  the 
same  family  as  Gothic,    There  may  even  occur  an 

207 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
occasional  trace  of  Egyptian,  Persian,  or  Chinese ; 
but  all  these  are  the  merest  experiments,  and  in  no 
way  form  an  integral  part  of  our  architecture.  They 
might  all  be  deducted  and  never  missed.  Of  the 
churches  and  buildings  we  see  round  us  in  our 
daily  walks,  all  of  them,  practically  speaking,  and 
every  feature  and  detail  belonging  to  each  one  of 
them,  launch  us  into  one  or  other  of  the  two  main 
currents  which  have  their  springs  in  the  mediaeval 
or  classic  age.  Moreover,  intermixed  as  they  often 
are,  these  streams  never  really  blend.  The  forms  of 
which  the  rival  styles  are  composed  may  be  forced 
into  unnatural  association,  but  they  never  combine 
in  effect ;  they  are  based  on  opposite,  apparently 
irreconcilable,  principles.  Mediaeval  architecture  is 
based  on  the  idea  of  vertical  expansion,  classic  archi- 
tecture on  the  idea  of  lateral  expansion.  The  desire 
of  the  one  is  to  rush  up ;  of  the  other  to  spread. 
The  salient  trait  in  the  architectural  history  of  the 
last  seven  centuries  has  been  the  feud  that  has  raged 
between  these  two  principles. 

What  is  interesting  to  observe,  aiso,  is  that  this 
feud  seems  to  be  something  more  than  a  quarrel 
over  technical  forms.  On  both  sides  there  appear 
again  and  again  the  same  favourable  or  unfavourable 
circumstances.  Conditions  which  we  learn  to  dis- 
tinguish as  favourable  to  the  vertical  principle 
precede  or  announce  its  arrival,  and  in  the  same 
way  conditions  favourable  to  the  lateral  principle 
prepare  its  way  for  it  in  the  world.  These  condi- 
tions consist  in  the  character  of  epochs  or  of  races. 
There  are  epochs  in  which  the  spirit  of  the  age 
fosters  one  or  other  of  these  principles.  There  are 
208 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 
ra;ces  which,  through  all  ages,  have  a  natural  affinity 
for  one  or  the  other  of  them.  This  being  so,  caiL 
we,  by  following  these  indications,  by  observing  the 
conditions  favourable  to  these  principles,  which 
recur  with  their  recurrence,  and  on  which  they  feed 
and  prosper,  affix  something  of  a  human  character 
to  the  architectural  principles  themselves  ?  Can  we 
say  they  stand  for  such  and  such  a  tendency  in 
human  nature,  and  prove  our  conclusion  from 
historical  evidence  ? 

It  is  recorded  of  Keats  by  his  friend  Edward 
Holmes  that  in  his  childhood  he  greatly  preferred 
fighting  to  reading.  "He  would  fight  any  one, 
morning,  noon  and  night,  his  brother  among  the 
rest.  It  was  meat  and  drink  to  him."  A  year  or 
two  later,  when  he  was  fourteen  or  fifteen,  we  find 
him  so  "suddenly  and  completely  absorbed  in 
reading  "  that,  according  to  Charles  Cowden  Clarke, 
"  he  never  willingly  had  a  book  out  of  his  hand." 
Perhaps  in  Keats's  case  the  change  came  with  un- 
usual abruptness,  but  still  it  is  more  or  less  a  normal 
one.  With  most  people  the  early  days,  when  action 
and  love  of  adventure  are  all  in  all,  are  marked  off 
with  some  distinctness  from  the  later  days  of  experi- 
ence and  thought.  Energy  a  boy  possesses,  and 
imagination  ;  but  not  intellect.  Boyhood  feels  but 
it  does  not  reason.  Consequently  all  its  spiritual 
intuitions  and  ideals,  instead  of  feeding  thought,  are 
translated  direct  into  terms  of  action.  Romance, 
love,  friendship,  ambition,  weave  themselves  in  boy- 
hood into  dreams  of  splendid  deeds.  The  dreamer 
is  always  a  doer  :  he  sails  the  sea  a  smuggler  or 
pirate;  he  explores  tropic  archipelagoes  or  virgin 

O  209 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
backwoods  with  Mayne  Reid  and  Fenimore  Cooper. 
His  heroes  in  fiction  are  Lancelot,  Boisguilbert, 
and  Amyas  Leigh.  In  real  life  they  are  the  captains 
of  his  cricket  and  football  elevens,  and  an  uncle 
who  was  wounded  in  the  Boer  war.  It  is  a  com- 
plete philosophy,  but  fugitive— complete  because 
based  on  an  intelligible  view  of  life,  fugitive  because 
it  ignores  a  main  principle  in  human  nature.  Later 
that  principle  comes  into  play.  Experience  and 
observation  nourish  the  power  of  thinking.  To 
body  and  soul  is  added  mind;  life  grows  wider, 
deeper,  fuller ;  action  can  no  longer  express  it,  and 
that  it  should  ever  have  seemed  capable  of  express- 
ing it  is  recognised  as  the  arch-delusion  of  boy- 
hood. 

In  something  the  same  way  there  are  epochs  in 
the  progress  of  races  that  seem  to  correspond  in 
their  ideals  and  limitations  to  this  stage  of  boyhood 
— epochs  when  the  main  theme  of  life  is  action, 
and  when  those  accompHshments  and  qualities  are 
most  valued  which  lead  to  success  in  action.  Such 
ages  have  their  own  conception  of  what  is  noble  and 
becoming  in  conduct  and  manners,  and  their  own 
interpretation  of  art,  and  poetry,  and  religion.  But 
all  these  represent,  when  analysed,  aspects  of  the 
view  of  life  common  to  the  age,  the  view,  namely, 
that  all  ideas,  however  beautiful,  or  holy,  or  romantic, 
can  be  expressed  in  terms  of  action  ;  that  the  brave 
heart,  the  strong  arm,  the  tough  lance,  are  the  fittest 
instruments  of  religion,  and  love,  and  honour,  and 
supply  the  only  deeds  fit  to  be  sung  and  celebrated. 
In  their  concurrence  these  manifestations  combine 
to  depict  a  life  complete  and  self-consistent  because 
2IQ 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 
based  on  a  distinct  principle— a  life  in  which  all  the 
traits  are  in  agreement  and  seem  animated  with  a 
similar  character.  But  the  duration  of  such  an 
epoch  is  limited.  Steadily  and  surely  it  is  under- 
mined by  the  influence  of  thought,  which  intro- 
duces into  life  ideals  which  action  can  no  longer 
satisfy  or  even  express.  When  this  occurs  the  whole 
fabric  of  achievement  in  which  the  earlier  phase  of 
life  had  embodied  itself  cracks  and  splits  asunder, 
and  men  march  through  a  crumbling  debris  of  old 
customs  and  beliefs  to  a  more  complicated,  perhaps, 
but  more  ample  existence. 

The  nature  of  the  limitations  of  mediaevalism  is 
apparent  directly  we  fix  our  attention  on  the  age 
itself.  If  we  draw  back  from  the  life  of  this  period 
and  survey  it  as  a  whole,  we  perceive  that  it  is  in  a 
sense  complete.  In  reaching  the  stage  of  crusades 
and  chivalry,  of  romance,  poetry  and  Gothic  archi- 
tecture, the  principle  underlying  mediaeval  life  had 
reached  its  maturity,'  This  was  its  time  of  fruition. 
A  stage  of  human  progress  is  here  rounded  off  and 
completed.  The  coming  stage  will  not  perpetuate 
the  old  endeavours  and  ideas.  Crusades,  chivalry, 
romance  poetry,  the  Gothic  style,  will  none  of  them 
be  permanently  established.  All  will  pass  away,  for 
they  represent  a  principle  which  is  played  out. 
The  determination  of  the  mediaeval  age  to  translate 
the  loftiest  ideals  into  terms  of  action  must  seem 
to  an  age  that  has  learnt  to  think  an  illusion.  It  is 
not  that  we  have  lost  the  old  ideals,  it  is  that  the 
mediaeval  expression  of  them  has  become  inade- 
quate. Honour,  courtesy,  loyalty,  courage,  all  the 
makings  of  chivalry,  still  subsist  among  us;    but 

211 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
chivalry  in  its  mediaeval  shape  is  extinct,  and  it  is 
so  because  the  splinterings  of  lances  and  over- 
throwing of  adversaries  no  longer  seem  a  satisfying 
expression  of  those  ideals.  In  the  same  way  a  St, 
Louis  of  to-day  would  find  no  outlet  for  his  piety  in 
slaying  Saracens.  He  would  conduct  his  crusade 
by  his  own  fireside  and  the  paynim  he  would  endea- 
vour to  overthrow  would  be  his  own  gross  or  selfish 
instincts.  Chivalry  and  the  crusades  are,  in  a  word, 
the  characteristics  of  an  age  of  action,  not  an  age  of 
thought.  They  are?  lacking  in  the  inwardness  and 
depth  which]  thought  brings,  and  are  sure  to  die 
out  as  soon  as  thought  shall  have  revealed  their 
inadequate  interpretation  of  the  ideas  they  have 
undertaken  to  express.  So  also  it  is  with  romance 
poetry.  That  poetry,  like  the  life  it  portrays,  has 
great  energy  and  vigour ;  but,  like  the  life  it 
portrays,  it  lacks  depth.  The  descriptions  are 
literal  only ;  it  deals  with  the  appearances  and  out- 
sides  of  things ;  it  does  not  enter  into  their  real 
nature ;  it  is  deficient  in  thought.  To  pass  from 
the  poetry  of  Luc  de  Gast  or  Walter  Map  to  the 
poetry  of  Milton  or  Wordsworth  is  to  pass  from  a 
poetry  that  does  not  think  to  a  poetry  that  does. 
Romance  poetry,  from  its  directness  and  vigour  and 
historical  interest,  may  still  command  a  fitful  atten- 
tion ;  but  as  poetry,  as  nourishment  for  mind  and 
character,  it  has  lost  its  value.  It  has  died  of  the 
malady  inherent  in  the  very  life  of  an  age  that 
undertakes  to  translate  ideals  into  terms  of  action, 
its  fatal  inability  to  think.  If,  however,  this  is  so,  it 
is  evident  that  Gothic  must  share  in  the  general 
deficiency.  Itself  the  typical  child  of  the  mediaeval 
212 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

age,  it  is  clear  that  if  the  mediaeval  age  was  as  poor 
in  thought  as  it  was  rich  in  energy— and  I  do  not 
know  how  any  one  who  studies  the  age  can  doubt 
this,  or  what  meaning,  if  they  do  doubt  it,  they  can 
possibly  attach  to  the  Renaissance — then  the  same 
shortcoming  must  infect  Gothic  architecture.  Only 
what  can  be  got  out  of  life  can  be  put  into  art. 
The  energy  which  characterises  mediaeval  life  we 
find  in  the  architecture.  If  lack  of  thought  equally 
characterises  that  life  we  shall  find  that  in  the 
architecture  too. 

It  is  the  consideration  of  how  this  deficiency  of 
the  age  affects  Gothic  architecture  which  will  bring 
us  in  touch  with  our  second  great  architectural 
principle,  the  principle  of  lateral  expansion.  We 
referred  just  now  to  the  way  in  which  the  upward- 
rushing  lines  of  Gothic  embody  the  spirit  of  mediae- 
val energy.  But  a  certain  structural  limitation 
necessarily  attends  that  impulse.  The  reader  will 
see  that  the  more  steeply  lines  rush  up  the  more 
energy  they  express,  while  the  more  they  droop  and 
incline  to  the  horizontal,  the  more  the  energy  dies 
out  of  them  and  the  more  passive  they  become. 
Equally  obvious  is  it  that  the  steeper  the  lines  the 
less  space  they  span,  while  the  more  they  droop  the 
more  space  they  span.  Accordingly  it  follows  that 
comparative  narrowness  of  proportions  is  an  integral 
and  essential  quality  in  Verticle  architecture.  This, 
structurally  speaking,  is  the  limitation  on  which 
the  positive  achievement  of  Gothic  is  founded. 
Expansion  vertically  is  granted  to  it  because  expan- 
sion laterally  is  denied.  When  we  stand  within  a 
Gothic  nave  it  is  the  expressed  intention  of  the 

213 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
building,  the  upward  rush,  that  draws  our  eyes. 
But  this  effect  is  not  obtained  without  loss.  Mr. 
Berenson  speaks  in  one  of  his  essays  of  the  "  noble 
spaciousness  "  of  the  classic  interiors,  and  he  also 
notes  the  seeming  inability  of  northeners  to  appre- 
ciate this  beauty.  No  one  certainly  will  accuse  the 
interior  of  Westminster  Abbey  of  noble  spaciousness. 
The  nave  recalls  some  narrow  chasm  among  gaunt 
sea  cliffs.  The  aisles  are  still  narrower  corridors. 
The  walls  and  piers  so  press  upon  one  as  to  give 
the  feeling  of  being  gripped  in  a  stone  vice.  Noble 
spaciousness,  whatever  it  may  be  worth,  is  here 
quite  lacking.  It  is  the  price  we  have  paid  for  all 
this  energy. 

What  then  is  this  noble  spaciousness  worth  ?  In 
other  words,  what  does  lateral  expansion  stand  for  ? 
It  is  not  a  very  difficult  question  to  answer  because 
though  the  spacious  style  has  been  used  to  serve  a 
number  of  base  and  worldly  ends,  there  is  still 
about  those  times  in  history  when  it  has  come 
nearest  perfection  a  general  similarity  in  character 
and  ideas  which  cannot  be  mistaken.  The  central 
type  of  the  lateral  style  is,  of  course,  the  Doric 
temple.  Perfected  and  refined  during  several  cen- 
turies, the  Doric  temple  is  admitted  to  have  attained 
its  utmost  expressiveness  in  the  last  half  of  the  fifth 
century  B.C.,  and  in  Athens.  This  half-century  was 
marked  by  the  rebuilding  of  the  Parthenon  and  by 
the  presence  in  Athens  of  such  names  as  Socrates 
and  Plato,  Thucydides  and  Herodotus,  Phidias 
and  Miron,  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides  and 
Aristophanes,  which  have  made  the  age  of  Pericles 
unrivalled  in  the  world's  history  for  the  variety  and 
2x4 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 
perfection  of  its  culture.  Whatever  else  it  is,  then, 
the  Doric  Temple,  the  supreme  example  of  hori- 
zontal architecture,  is  essentially  the  product  of  an 
age  of  thought.  It  is  the  product  of  an  age  just  as 
fully  charged  with  thought  as  the  mediaeval  age  is 
charged  with  energy. 

And  also,  this  Greek  culture  is  remarkable  not 
only  for  its  variety  and  perfection  but  for  the  dis- 
tinct ideal  it  laid  before  itself.  No  one  has  written 
more  sympathetically  of  late  years  about  the  Greeks 
than  Professor  Butcher;  and  Professor  Butcher 
points  out  in  many  places  clearly  enough  what  this 
ideal  of  Greek  culture  was.  It  was  the  equal  and 
harmonious  development  of  the  human  mind.  The 
expert  and  specialist  had  no  part  in  the  Greek 
system.  "With  all  their  restless  curiosity,  their 
insatiable  love  of  knowledge,  they  had  no  respect  for 
mere  erudition."  "  Wealth  of  thought,  not  wealth 
of  learning,  was  the  thing  they  coveted."  "  Exten- 
sive reading,  the  acquisition  of  facts,  the  storing  of 
them  in  the  memory,"  all  this,  unless  it  is  accom- 
panied by  "  enlargement  of  mind,"  unless  it  "  fits 
men  for  the  exercise  of  thought,"  unless  it  leads  on 
to  "mental  completeness  and  grasp,"  is  material 
wasted.  It  was  the  study  of  the  Greek  to  see  all 
things  in  their  relation  to  other  things  and  in  their 
relation  to  Hfe  ;  and  to  do  this,  that  even  and  com- 
plete development  of  all  his  faculties  was  necessary 
which  was  the  aim  of  his  whole  training  and  educa- 
tion. 

Moreover,  this  system  of  culture  was  not  the 
Greek  system  only,  or  did  not  remain  Greek  only. 
Handed  down  by  Athens  to  Rome,  it  became  the 

215 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
note  of  classic  culture  generally.  When,  to  this  day, 
we  use  the  words  classic  and  classical,  it  is  this 
system  we  have  in  our  mind.  We  do  not  imply 
necessarily  a  special  and  particular  knowledge,  but 
the  capacity  for  seeing  a  thing  in  its  relation  to 
other  things  and  to  life.  We  imply  that  "  enlarge- 
ment of  mind,"  that  "  mental  completeness  "  which 
is  capable  of  a  wide  survey,  and,  also,  we  imply  the 
manner  that  corresponds,  the  moderation,  calmness, 
and  lucidity  which  are  the  characteristics  of  the 
classic  style. 

And,  since  men  work  in  stone  much  as  they  work 
in  other  things,  we  shall  not  be  surprised  to  find 
that  this  classic  way  of  thinking  imaged  itself  in  an 
architecture  like  to  itself.  Mr.  Berenson's  phrase 
**  noble  spaciousness "  might  indeed  be  transferred 
with  perfect  propriety  from  the  classic  architecture 
which  occasioned  it  to  the  classic  mind  which 
occasioned  the  architecture.  Of  course,  it  is  true 
that  classic  architecture,  as  developed  under  Rome, 
not  only,  as  has  been  previously  pointed  out,  fell 
into  a  dull  groove  of  iteration,  but  was  disfigured 
by  all  sorts  of  vulgarities  and  a  vast  amount  of 
ostentation  and  pride,  and  was  artistically  perhaps 
of  very  small  account  indeed.  I  am  not  attempting 
an  estimate  of  that  architecture.  I  am  merely  in- 
dicating the  one  thing  of  value  which,  in  spite  of  its 
many  bad  qualities,  it  really  did  possess.  Its  one 
fine  quality  consisted  in  its  spacious  and  ample  pro- 
portions, proportions  in  which  are  measured  for  us 
the  qualities  of  the  classic  mind,  and  which  produce 
upon  us  something  of  the  same  calming  effect  which 
contact  with  the  classic  mind  itself  produces. 
^i6 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 
I  need  not  here  dwell  upon  the  preliminary  phases 
which  developed  the  Augustan  age.  The  Mediter- 
ranean Empire  of  Caesar  was  the  larger  stage  pre- 
pared for  it ;  the  spread  of  Greek  influence  and 
ideas  was  its  inspiration.  As  in  politics  the  con- 
servative, or  distinctively  Italian,  element  resisted 
the  cosmopolitanism  of  the  new  Empire,  so  m 
Hterature  and  thought  the  local  standard  and  local 
scheme  of  culture  resisted  the  Hellenic  [widening 
influence.  The  triumph  of  general  ideas,  though 
under  conditions  of  political  servitude  which  first 
enfeeble  and  then  corrupt  them,  is  declared  in  the 
years  leading  up  to  and  culminating  in  the  age  of 
Augustus.  It  is  declared  in  two  ways,  ways  which, 
we  shall  perhaps  see  by-and-by,  are  inseparable. 
In  the  first  place  it  is  declared  in  an  outburst  of 
intellectual  activity  remarkable  not  so  much  for 
individual  genius,  though  individual  genius  (Virgil, 
Livy,  Ovid,  Horace)  is  rife  enough,  as  for  a  general 
and  universal  interest  in  thought  and  study,  an 
interest  which  shows  itself  in  such  signs  as  the 
founding  of  libraries,  not  public  only,  but  private, 
not  in  Rome  only  but  in  country  towns  and  villas, 
in  the  forming  of  literary  clubs  and  societies,  and  in 
the  honour  and  consideration  in  which  the  art  of 
literature  was  held  by  all  from  Augustus  himself 
downward.  In  the  second  place,  it  is  shown  in  the 
outburst  of  building  activity  by  which  Rome  in  this 
age  was  transfigured,  and  which  itself  is  distinguished 
architecturally  by  magnificence  in  part,  but,  more 
fundamentally,  by  a  sense  of  order  and  stateliness 
and  a  love  of  broad  and  ample  proportions. 

Henceforth  we  find  this  sense  of  breadth  and 

'  217 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

amplitude  established  as  the  essential  principle  of 
architecture.  It  becomes  architecture's  constant 
and  unfailing  attribute,  the  quality  in  classic  archi- 
tecture which  goes  with  that  quality  we  call  classic 
in  thought  and  literature.  We  find  it  transferred 
to  the  early  Christian  basilicas,  and,  shrunken  and 
diminished,  feebly  surviving  as  a  structural  motive 
in  various  forms  of  Romanesque  down  even  to  the 
twelfth  century.  Then  Gothic,  the  style  of  energy, 
killed  it,  and  there  followed  an  epoch  when  the  old 
classic  breadth  was  absent  from  the  architecture,  as 
it  was  absent  from  the  mind,  of  the  age.  But 
though  apparently  dead  it  was  destined  to  a  re- 
naissance, and  it  is  to  that  Renaissance,  attesting  as 
it  does  the  significance  of  the  horizontal  principle 
in  architecture,  that  we  will  now  turn. 

Mr.  Symonds  has  given  an  account  of  the  Re- 
naissance and  of  the  causes  which  led  up  to  it  which 
I  cannot  but  think  in  some  respects  misleading.  It 
is  his  conviction  that  the  Renaissance  is  an  act  of 
emancipation.  To  this  w^ord  he  returns  again  and 
again.  "The  emancipation  of  the  reason  for  the 
modern  world,"  the  "  emancipation  of  the  reason 
of  mankind,"  "the  work  of  intellectual  emancipa- 
tion for  the  rest  of  Europe,"  and  so  on.  The 
power  that  had  hitherto  held  mankind  in  a  state  of 
"  mental  bondage  "  was,  according  to  Mr.  Symonds, 
the  Church.  He  draws  a  terrible  picture  of  the 
Church  sitting  like  an  incubus  on  the  intellect  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  "  The  mental  condition  of  the 
Middle  Ages  was  one  of  ignorant  prostration  before 
the  idols  of  the  Church  "  ;  and  the  Church  itself 
had  attained  to  such  an  ascendancy  that  the  age 
?l8 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

might  be  said  "to  look  at  life  through  a  cowl." 
This  theory  of  the  mediaeval  mind,  prostrated  and 
priest-ridden,  and  ot  the  Renaissance  as  the  fairy 
prince  setting  it  free,  is  the  keynote  of  Mr.  Symonds's 
analysis ;  but  I  do  not  in  the  least  see  how  either 
proposition  will  stand  examination.  A  disinterested 
student  of  the  Middle  Ages  will  find  plenty  of 
ignorance,  no  doubt ;  but  he  will  find  very  little 
prostration.  He  will  find  that  the  age  looked  at 
Hfe  more  often  through  a  steel  visor  than  through 
a  cowl.  He  will  find  that  the  barons  of  the  twelfth 
century  needed  no  instruction  in  the  art  of  managing 
their  priests,  and  that  the  exhortations  of  the  Church 
were  only  so  far  attended  to  as  they  happened  to 
chime  with  the  humour  of  the  age.  Mr.  Symonds 
seems  to  have  mistaken  a  state  of  mental  insensi- 
bility for  a  state  of  mental  bondage.  The  northern 
races  in  the  Middle  Ages  had  all  the  intellectual 
emancipation  they  needed  or  could  have  had.  If 
thought  was  lacking,  it  was  not  because  it  .was 
strangled  but  because  the  thinking  age  had  not  yet 
been  reached.  When  it  arrived,  the  age  moved 
forward,  carrying,  as  it  always  does  with  perfect 
comfort,  its  Church  and  priests  along  with  it.  The 
Renaissance,  as  I  understand  it,  was  not  an  act  of 
emancipation  but  of  natural  development;  the 
succession  in  its  due  time  and  season  of  the  age  of 
thought  to  the  age  of  action. 

In  tracing  the  rise  of  Renaissance  art  in  Europe 
the  facts  we  have  to  bear  in  mind  are  these  :  We  have 
already  identified  the  Gothic  style  of  architecture 
with  the  northern  racial  temperament.  It  was  the 
inherent   energy  and  individual  initiative  of  the 

219 


_     THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

northern  races  which  infused  both  a  new  vitality 
into  the  old  Latin  society  and  a  new  vitality  into 
the  old  Latin  architecture.  We  have  therefore  in 
Gothic  a  style  commensurate  with  the  northern 
influence,  and  which  we  shall  naturally  expect  to 
find,  and  find  only,  where  that  influence  is  dominant 
in  life.  On  the  other  hand  in  classic  architecture  we 
have  made  acquaintance  v/ith  a  principle  of  a  quite 
different  kind,  the  principle  of  horizontal  develop- 
ment, which  we  recognise  as  expressing  the  ruling 
classic  characteristic,  namely,  free  play  of  intellect. 

Now  what,  if  these  definitions  are  sound,  must 
be  the  tendency  of  Renaissance  art  ?  For  one 
thing,  the  Renaissance  was  essentially  an  intellectual 
movement ;  for  another,  a  Latin  not  a  Gothic  race 
took  the  lead  in  it.  Our  thoughts  turn  to  Italy. 
Italy  was  never  Gothicised.  She  received  a  leaven, 
or  top-dressing,  as  it  were,  of  the  northern  racial 
element,  but  she  remained  in  the  bulk  of  her  popu- 
lation essentially  Latin.  Therefore  if  our  reading 
of  Gothic  art  be  right,  Italy  will  resist  the  importa- 
tion of  Gothic  forms  of  architecture.  On  the  other 
hand,  Italy  was  the  birthplace  of  the  modern 
intellectual  movement.  Therefore,  if  our  reading  of 
the  horizontal  expansion  as  applied  to  building  be 
just,  Italy  will  instinctively  turn  to  the  horizontal 
principle  as  a  means  of  self-expression. 

Now  let  us  see  how  this  works  out.  What  is 
apparent  at  a  glance  is  that  all  those  modes  of 
utterance  to  which  the  north  had  recourse,  chivalry 
and  romance  poetry,  crusades  and  Gothic  architec- 
ture, fell  in  Italy  quite  flat,  or  at  least  only  fizzled 
fitfully  here  and  there  in  the  northern  parts  of  the 
220 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 
country  where  the  admixture  of  Gothic  blood  was 
strongest.  We  will  not  follow  these  manifestations 
here  except  so  far  as  they  concern  architecture,  but 
the  reception  given  in  Italy  to  Gothic  architecture 
is  particularly  worth  noticing,  partly  for  the  light  it 
throws  on  the  meaning  of  horizontal  and  vertical 
proportion,  and  partly  because  it  really  belongs  and 
leads  up  to  the  Renaissance  movement  itself. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  we  find  that,  immeasurably 
ahead  of  the  northern  nations  as  Italy  was  in  general 
matters  of  art,  she  had  to  be  instructed  in  a  style 
peculiarly  their  own.  The  towns  of  the  north  were 
the  first  to  receive  the  style,  and  the  earliest  ex- 
amples were  built  by  German  or  English  architects. 
Fergusson  selects  the  church  of  St.  Andrea  at  Vercelli 
as  "  perhaps  the  first  Italian  edifice  into  which  the 
pointed  arch  was  introduced."  It  was  begun  as 
early  as  1219  by  the  Cardinal  Guala  Bicchieri,  who 
had  been  Legate  in  England,  and  who  brought  with 
him  an  English  architect  to  introduce  the  new  style. 
However,  in  spite  of  this,  "with  the  plan  all 
influence  of  the  English  architect  seems  to  have 
ceased  and  the  structure  is  in  purely  Italian  style." 
As  to  the  general  character  of  this  style,  "Italy, 
though  a  fashion  rather  than  a  taste  had  introduced 
a  partial  approximation  to  the  forms  of  northern 
architecture,  never  really  loved  or  even  understood 
it."  Fergusson  dwells  on  this  idea  of  its  being  a 
style  misunderstood.  It  "  is  a  style  copied  without 
understanding."  It  "  displays  ignorance  of  the  true 
Gothic  feeling."  It  was  "  a  feeble  imitation,  copying 
a  few  Gothic  forms  without  realising  their  spirit." 
This  is  the  usual  northern  estimate  of  Italian  Gothic. 

221 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
But  these  Italian  buildings  show  more  method  in 
their  treatment  of  the  style  than  commonly  belongs 
to  mere  ignorance.  What  they  seem  to  exhibit  is 
not  ignorance  so  much  as  dislike  of  the  Gothic 
feeling.  They  contain  a  criticism  which,  whether 
justifiable  or  not,  is  at  any  rate  consistent  and 
intelligible  and  worth  a  moment's  consideration. 

The  Cathedral  of  Florence,  called  by  Fergusson 
"by  far  the  greatest  and  most  perfect  example  of 
Italian  Gothic,"  may  be  taken  as  representative  of 
the  style.  The  measures  taken  here  for  counter- 
acting the  northern  influence  are  adopted  more  or 
less  without  exception  in  every  Gothic  building  in 
Italy,'  These  measures  are  of  two  kinds.  In  the 
first  place  the  vertical  tendency,  the  upward  rush,  in 
which  the  energy  of  Gothic  primarily  resides,  is 
peremptorily  checked.  In  fully  developed  Gothic 
the  craving  of  all  the  lines  to  soar  receives  its 
expression  in  the  use  made  of  the  clustered  shafts. 
These  shafts  are  really,  as  I  have  pointed  out, 
bundles  of  stalks  projected  through  their  capitals  in 
every  direction  ;  so  that,  looking  up  the  length  of  a 
Gothic  nave,  one  is  impressed  by  the  great  array  of 
lines  springing  in  clusters  from  the  pavement  and 
guiding  the  eye  without  let  or  check  to  the  apex  of 
the  roof.  This  is  the  feature  which  pre-eminently 
exhibits  the  energetic  character  of  this  style,  which 
excites  most  powerfully  the  ecstasy  of  its  admirers, 
and  which  is  most  stubbornly  resisted  by  Italian 
architects.  In  the  Florentine  cathedral  the  aisle 
piers  are  formed  of  massive,  engaged  pilasters,  four 
square.  Their  flat  faces  have  none  of  the  fiery 
energy  of  the  Gothic  cluster  and  they  are  surmounted 
222 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

by  heavy  and  elaborate  capitals.  Above  these, 
however,  an  indication  of  the  Gothic  idea  is  given 
by  the  appearance  of  vaulting  pilasters.  These 
commence  the  ascent  of  the  nave  wall,  but  before 
they  have  got  far  they  are  stopped  by  the  imposition 
of  other  big  capitals  of  no  use  structurally  and  merely 
serving  as  blows  dealt  at  the  vertical  principle.  Once 
more  the  pilasters  emerge  and  crawl  painfully  a  few 
feet  higher,  when  their  career  is  finally  quenched  by 
a  projecting  gallery,  formed  of  heavy  corbels 
supporting  a  massive  stone  balcony  which  runs 
entirely  round  the  building,  remorselessly  splitting 
it  in  half. 

And  now,  the  vertical  principle  being  thus 
effectually  disposed  'of,  the  Italian  architect  turns 
his  attention  to  those  ideas  of  his  own  which  he 
wishes  to  substitute'f or  it.  That  powerful  horizontal 
line  of  the  balcony  which  we  have  seen  dealing  the 
vertical  tendency  its  coup  de  grace,  is  the  line  he 
loves,  and  gives  the  clue  to  all  his  efforts  which  are 
now  directed  to  developing  the  idea  of  lateral 
expansion  to  the  utmost.  Inside  the  Florentine 
cathedral  is  opposed  to  every  northern  example  by 
its  enormous  width.  Though  not  so  long  as 
Westminster  Abbey,  it  wants  but  a  few  feet  of  being 
twice  as  wide,  and  this  width  is  accentuated  and 
apparently  greatly  increased  by  the  enormous  span 
of  the  aisle  arcades.  The  reader  is  aware  that 
narrow  arches  and  close-set  shafts  add  to  the 
appearance  of  height  and  detract  from  the  appear- 
ance of  width,  whereas  shafts  far  apart  and  spreading 
arches  detract  from  height  and  add  to  width ;  the 
inclination  of  the  eye  being  to  travel  always  in  the 

223 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
direction  of  the  lines  given  it  to  run  on:  The 
Florentine  aisles  consist  of  only  four  arches,  and 
these  span  about  the  same  distance  that  fourteen 
Westminster  arches  would  reach.  By  these  means 
the  naturally  great  width  of  the  interior  is  accen- 
tuated, to  such  a  degree  indeed  that  all  Gothic 
feeling  is  totally  eliminated  from  it  and  in  its 
general  character  it  much  more  recalls  an  early 
basilica  than  the  style  of  the  North. 

Outside  we  should  find  the  same  idea  insisted  on. 
We  should  find  the  powerful,  vertical  lines  of  the 
northern  buttresses  toned  down  or  obliterated,  and 
in  place  of  them  the  long  level  outline  of  the  nave, 
underlined  by  heavy  horizontal  cornices,  giving  the 
idea  of  lateral  expansion.     Many  other  features  of 
the  same  kind  might  be  instanced.    I  will  content 
myself  with  mentioning  the  dome,  which,  in  Italian 
Gothic,  takes  the  place  of  the  northern  spire.    Ex- 
ternally no  feature  embodies  the  northern  feeling 
so  powerfully  as  the  spire.     It  seems  to  have  been 
designed  as  a  corrective  to  the  necessarily  more  or 
less  horizontal  aspect  of  the  building  as  seen  from 
without.     It  was  sure,  therefore,  to  be  peculiarly 
obnoxious  to  Italian  taste,  and  in  place  of  it  we  have 
the  wide  and  ample  dome  victoriously  asserting  the 
old  idea  of  lateral  expansion.    These  modifications 
are,  it  must  be  remembered,  typical.     All  Italian 
Gothic  is  more  or  less  altered  from  the  northern 
original,  and  it  is  the  invariable  purpose  of   all 
these  alterations  to  substitute  lateral  expansion  for 
vertical.    The  Italian  treatment  of  the  style  is,  in 
short,  perfectly  consistent,  and  is  not  to  be  regarded 
as  meaningless  or  merely  a  bad  imitation.     It  con- 
224 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 
tains  a  quite  definite  criticism  which,  whether  just 
or  unjust,  has  purpose  and  significance. 

Further,  it  will  be  seen  from  this  that  the  Italian 
Gothic  style  may  almost  be  said  to  form  part  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance  itself.  At  least  it  is  the  appro- 
priate introduction  to  it.  Any  one  who  had  observed 
the  Italian  modification  of  Gothic  would  easily  con- 
jecture what  the  general  character  of  Italy's  native 
style  would  be  when  her  time  came  to  produce  it. 
He  would  see  that  she  was  persistently  hankering 
after  breadth  in  architecture,  and  that  no  exhorta- 
tions, however  earnest,  had  power  to  detach  her 
from  it.  He  would  accordingly  be  able  to  assert 
with  confidence  that  the  Italian  style  proper,  when 
it  came,  would  be  as  purely  a  horizontal  style  as 
Gothic  was  vertical.  It  is  the  more  important  to 
notice  this  foreshadowing  of  the  character  of 
Renaissance  because  we  are  apt  sometimes  to 
imagine  that,  at  least  in  architecture,  it  adopted  the 
forms  it  did  merely  because  they  were  classic  forms, 
a  part  of  the  furniture  of  that  Roman  life  which  the 
Italian  imagination  found  so  captivating.  But  it  is 
certain  that  Italy  could  no  more  have  taken  from 
Rome  a  style  that  did  not  suit  her  than  she  could 
take  from  the  North  a  style  that  did  not  suit  her. 
If  she  borrowed  the  Roman  style  of  architecture,  it 
was  because  that  style  said  pretty  nearly  exactly 
what  she  herself  had  it  in  her  mind  to  say;  and  that 
this  is  so  is  shown  by  those  systematic  experiments 
in  the  horizontal  which  we  have  been  watching  in 
Italian  Gothic.  One  is  tempted  sometimes  to  wish 
that  the  earth  had  lain  a  little  deeper  on  the  Roman 
ruins,  and  that  Italy  had  been  left  to  evolve  her  new 

r  225 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
architecture  for  herself.  An  original  style  produced 
by  the  Renaissance,  Michelangelo  working  archi- 
tecturally in  the  ideas  of  the  period,  would  have 
been  vastly  more  interesting  to  posterity  than  the 
reproduction  of  stereotyped  classic  formulas.  At 
the  same  time  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  general 
character  this  Italian  style  would  have  resembled 
the  older  classic.  It  would  at  least  have  resembled 
it  to  the  extent  that  it  would  have  been  strictly  a 
style  of  horizontal  development. 

And  this  it  would  have  been  because  the  mental 
conditions  underlying  it  were  similar  to  the  mental 
conditions  underlying  the  old  classic  styles.  The 
ideal  of  all-round  culture  which  formed  the  scheme 
and  ground-plan  of  classic  thought,  is  precisely  the 
ideal  which  we  find  reasserting  itself  as  the  scheme 
of  Renaissance  thought.  Here  lies  no  doubt  the 
secret  of  the  Renaissance  as  an  inspiration.  We  are 
sometimes  inclined  to  wonder,  as  we  trace  back  our 
various  systems  of  thought,  our  philosophy  and 
theology,  our  sciences  and  arts,  our  discoveries  and 
inventions,  and  all  the  fruits  of  modern  reason,  to 
their  common  starting-point  in  the  Renaissance, 
that  results  which  have  since  loomed  so  large 
should  have  had,  save  in  the  one  matter  of  art,  such 
small  beginnings.  All  knowledge  seems  to  flow 
from  the  Renaissance,  yet  in  the  Renaissance  itself 
there  is  but  little  knowledge.  But  as  we  study  the 
play  of  mind  of  that  age  the  wonder  passes.  The 
truth  appears  that  Italy's  mission  in  the  Renaissance 
was  not  to  achieve  but  to  stimulate.  She  plucked  no 
fruit  of  knowledge,  but  she  taught  men  to  climb  the 
tree.  And  this  she  did  by  infecting  them  with  her 
226 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

own  joy  in  thinking,  her  disinterested  love  of  ideas, 
her  vivid,  sensuous  delight  in  the  mere  movement 
and  play  of  the  mind.  There  are  other  schemes  of 
culture  perhaps,  but  this  is  the  scheme  that  brings 
joy.  The  happiness  which  we  recognise  as  belong- 
ing to  the  Renaissance  is  the  happiness  which 
springs,  not  from  results  achieved  by  study  or 
reflection,  but  from  the  sensation  of  the  activity  of 
the  mind  itself. 

This  in  the  Renaissance  is  the  classic  note.  Its 
actual  achievement,  as  compared  to  that  of  Athens 
or  Rome,  was  slight.  Nevertheless,  between  the 
ages  of  Pericles,  Augustus  and  Lorenzo  there  is 
a  profound  intellectual  affinity,  arising  from  the  love 
of  disinterested  thinking,  common  to  all  three.  If 
we  realise  this  affinity  we  shall  not  fall  into  the 
delusion  of  supposing  that  the  Renaissance  adopted 
classic  architecture,  together  with  classic  fashion? 
and  ideas  of  all  kinds,  merely  for  the  reason  that  it 
hailed  from  Rome.  The  broad  arcades  and  ample 
vast  interiors  of  Renaissance  palaces  and  churches 
are  the  natural  lodging  of  minds  that  dislike 
barriers  and  obstacles  of  all  kinds,  and  have  an 
aversion  for  everything  cramped  and  narrow. 
The  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  age  needed  such 
lodging,  and  such  a  one  had  been  long  in  prepara- 
tion. Out  of  the  most  refractory  material  the 
attempt  had  been  made  and  the  determination 
expressed  to  establish  in  Italy  the  architecture  of 
spaciousness.  The  style  of  Imperial  Rome  was 
seized  because  it  met  this  need.  It  is  easy  to 
exaggerate  the  importance  of  the  affectation  and 
erudition  of  the  style*  its  daubs  of  acanthus  foliage, 

227 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
its  trophies  and  orders  and  such  other  bric-a-brac. 
These  are  accidents :  the  expression  merely  of 
Italy's  effusive  gratitude  to  a  style  that  gave  her 
what  she  wanted.  Let  us  think  rather  of  the  main 
proportions,  those  "symphonies  of  space"  as  Mr 
Berenson  calls  them,  which  produce  on  the  senses 
"  the  tonic  and  ennobling  effect  of  classical  music." 
This  is  what  stands  for  the  real,  interior  relationship 
between  classic  Rome  and  the  Renaissance,  the 
relationship  of  mind  and  intellect. 

And  now  if  the  reader,  glancing  back  over  the 
course  of  our  argument,  and  having  followed  the 
fortunes  of  the  horizontal  principle  from  its  great 
days  in  the  classic  age  through  its  struggle  with  the 
vertical  principle  to  its  triumph  in  the  Renaissance, 
having  noted,  too,  the  mental  conditions  that 
inevitably  attend  and  announce  it,  is  inclined  to 
recognise  a  connection  between  spaciousness  in 
architecture  and  a  free  play  of  the  mind,  let  me  ask 
him  to  follow  onward  the  course  of  history  and 
observe  what  further  justification  this  connection 
receives  from  events.  The  Italian  Renaissance  did 
not  long  remain  Italian.  The  love  of  thinking 
which  was  revived  by  the  old  race  was  by-and-by 
developed  by  the  new.  When  this  happened  the 
new  race,  having  attained  more  or  less  to  the  same 
intellectual  standpoint,  began  to  reach  out  towards 
Italian  architecture  exactly  as  Italy,  a  century  or 
two  earlier,  had  reached  out  towards  classic  archi- 
tecture. There  came  about  a  counter-revolution  in 
the  northern  style.  As  the  style  of  ideas  had  been 
killed  by  the  style  of  energy,  so  now  the  style  of 
energy  went  down  in  turn  before  the  style  of  ideas, 
228 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 
Everywhere,  keeping  pace  with  the  flow  of  ideas* 
went  the  proportions  that  could  properly  house 
them  ;  but  not  everywhere  do  we  find  those  propor- 
tions spreading  with  the  same  quickness  or  the  same 
completeness.  The  old  style  struggled  against  the 
new,  and  sometimes  the  struggle  was  long,  obstinate 
and  doubtful ;  sometimes  shorter,  and,  in  the  result, 
decisive.  If  now  we  keep  one  eye  on  the  spread  of 
ideas  and  the  other  on  the  spread  of  horizontal 
architecture,  we  shall  find  that  in  the  architecture 
we  have  a  kind  of  register  of  the  thinking  aptitude 
of  Europe.  We  shall  find  that  the  accessibility  or 
inaccessibility  of  various  parts  of  Europe  at  various 
times  to  ideas  is  measured  for  us  in  the  readiness  of 
architecture  in  those  parts  to  expand,  or  in  its  refusal 
to  expand. 

By  nature  a  lover  of  ideas  and  prompt  to  entertain 
them,  France,  more  readily  than  other  nations, 
entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  new  style.  But  even 
in  France  there  was  a  long  transition  period 
extending  perhaps,  as  Fergusson  thinks,  almost  to 
the  succession  of  Louis  XIV.  in  1642,  That  period 
is  covered  in  tw^o  steps.  During  its  first  half  the 
tendency  was  to  maintain  Gothic  outlines  and  pro- 
portions, but  to  fill  in  with  classic  ornament  and 
detail.  Diwing  the  second  half,  when  Gothic  was 
dying  out,  the  tendency  was  to  substitute  classic 
outlines  and  proportions  with,  as  yet,  little  regard 
to  harmony,  but  to  introduce  a  number  of  Gothic 
details  and  minor  features  with  very  disconcerting 
effect.  This  altercation  between  opposite  principles, 
this  attempt  to  unite  "  the  picturesqueness  of  Gothic 
with  the  gigantic  features  with  which  Michelangelo 

229 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
had  overlaid  his  pseudo-classical  constructions/' 
may  be  taken  as  the  lowest  point  in  taste  reached 
by  French  architecture.  During  the  reign  of 
Louis  XIII.,  however,  that  architecture  was  finally 
making  up  its  mind  to  which  principle  it  should 
adhere,  and  "  forming  itself  into  the  purer  style  of 
the  Grand  Monarque." 

As  to  this  purer  style  I  will  not  here  stop  to 
consider  the  many  charges  that  may  be  brought 
against  it.  That  it  is  worldly,  cold-hearted,  arro- 
gant and  purse-proud  is  indisputable,  and  equally 
indisputable  is  it  that  these  were  signs  of  the  times 
and  of  society.  But  there  is  something  else  much 
more  worthy  of  notice  and  more  characteristic  of 
the  age  both  in  the  architecture  and  in  society  than 
this  worldliness  and  arrogance.  In  the  palaces  and 
chateaux  and  great  Parisian  hotels  of  the  period 
there  comes  to  light  a  quality  hitherto  never  recog- 
nised by  the  North.  The  age  was  one  of  great 
activity  in  building,  and  of  an  activity  directed  to  a 
definite  end,  animated  by  an  intelligible  principle 
and  hence  resulting  in  a  style.  And  of  this  style 
the  main  characteristic,  under  all  its  gilt  trappings 
and  gewgaws,  is  once  more  the  old  width  and 
space.  In  these  ample  courts  and  stately  salons 
and  spacious  galleries,  there  revives  again  some- 
thing of  the  atmosphere  of  classic  days  and  classic 
architecture.  No  mere  wealth  and  love  of  show 
ever  achieved  an  effect  like  this.  What  it  indicates, 
we,  by  this  time,  know,  and  we  can  turn  to  the 
life  of  the  age  with  a  confident  assurance  of 
finding  it. 

By  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  Italy,  as 
230 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  preacher  of  the  new  gospel,  the  gospel  of  ideas, 
had  dropped  out  of  the  running ,  and  France  had 
taken  her  place.  Henceforth  the  task  of  inculcating 
ideas  and  keeping  alive  in  Europe  the  love  of  dis- 
interested thought  was  to  be  the  task  of  France  ; 
and  there  arose,  as  though  in  response  to  the  call  of 
destiny,  a  host  of  great  names  to  carry  that  task  out, 
Corneille,  La  Fontaine,  Moli^re,  Boileau,  Racine, 
La  Bruyere,  Descartes,  Pascal,  Bossuet,  Fenelon — 
as  we  review  the  list  it  seems  as  if  all  the  genius  of 
French  literature  were  crammed  into  one  pregnant 
half-century.  But  what  is  the  key-note  and  mark  of 
intellectual  affinity  in  this  galaxy  of  talent  ?  It  is, 
or  used  to  be,  the  fashion  to  judge  Louis  Quatorze 
literature  by  one  or  two  great  dramatic  poets,  and  to 
pronounce  it  highly  artificial  and  stereotyped.  But 
if  we  turn  to  the  general  mass  of  the  literary 
work  of  the  period  the  result  is  extraordinarily 
different.  For  this  general  mass  of  literary  work 
is  notable  above  all  for  flexibility,  liveliness  and 
naturalness  ;  for  its  remarkable  clearness  of  intelli- 
gence, and  the  ease  and  precision  with  which  it 
expresses  its  ideas.  This  liveliness  of  intelligence, 
much  more  than  pedantry  and  artifice,  is  the  cha- 
racteristic of  the  age.  Madame  de  Sevigne  is  far 
more  typical  than  Racine.  From  her  letters,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  endless  memoirs  and  journals  of  a 
reign  singularly  rich  in  this  kind  of  literature,  we 
gain  an  idea  of  the  culture  of  French  society. 
Introduced  to  numbers  of  clever  men  and  women, 
we  can  follow  their  interchange  of  judgments  and 
ideas,  and  catch  the  intellectual  tone  of  the  age. 
And,    allow^ing    for   the    slight    difference   arising 

231 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
from  Italy's  bent  being  more  artistic  and  France's 
more  literary,  the  tone  of  French  society  in  the 
seventeenth  century  is  singularly  reminiscent  of  the 
tone  of  Italian  society  two  centuries  before.  There 
is  the  same  atmosphere  of  curiosity,  alertness,  and 
eagerness  to  know  and  learn,  only  taking  in  France 
a  more  distinctively  literary  turn  than  in  Italy. 

The  great  intellectual  and  literary  work  which 
emanated  from  the  seventeenth  century  in  France 
is  itself  a  proof  how  widely  spread  the  pleasure  of 
thinking  disinterestedly  and  expressing  accurately 
was ;  for  it  is  itself  collective  in  character.  That 
work  was  the  fashioning  of  the  incomparable  French 
prose ;  a  prose  flexible,  deft,  precise,  fit  to  become 
the  medium  of  exchange  for  European  thought. 
Fashioned  and  tempered  in  an  age  when  the  dis- 
interested love  of  ideas  was  a  paramount  intellectual 
instinct,  this  prose  bears  [witness  in  every  inflection 
to  the  influence  of  that  instinct.  Every  one  knows 
how  much  easier  it  is  for  a  Frenchman  to  say 
exactly  what  he  means  than  for  an  Englishman  or  a 
German  ;  the  reason  being  evidently  that  the  French 
medium  of  expression  was  forged  in  an  age  when 
the  mind  of  the  nation  was  clear ;  when  it  was  not 
distraught  by  prejudices,  or  pledged  to  local 
standards.  Constructed  by  pure  ideas,  it  was  fitted 
in  its  nature  to  express  ideas.  It  is  in  the  minds  of 
its  architects  that  we  must  look  for  the  origin  of  the 
lucidity  of  French  prose ;  and  of  its  architects,  if 
Descartes,  Pascal,  Fenelon,  La  Rochefoucauld  hold 
foremost  places,  it  is  only  as  first  out  of  a  multitude. 
That  prose  was  in  reality  the  work  of  all  those  who 
in  this  age  felt  the  delight  of  exercising  their  minds 
232 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

it  is,  in  short,  a  work  of  the  age  itself,  and  it  is  what 
vindicates  the  age's  claim  to  the  title  of  classic. 

Thus,  under  the  glitter  and  state  and  show  of 
Louis  Quatorze  society  we  search  for  and  find,  for 
the  first  time  among  northern  races,  the  intellectual 
freedom  which  is  the  main  characteristic  of  the 
time;  just  as  under  the  show  and  glitter  of  its 
buildings  we  found  that  love  of  ample  space  which 
was  the  main  characteristic  of  its  architecture. 
These  two,  the  play  of  mind  in  the  age,  the  breadth 
in  the  architecture,  are  the  vital  traits.  They  are  also 
inseparable.  Step  by  step  they  keep  pace  as  they 
advance  and  every  struggle  of  the  mind  out  of  the 
strait-waistcoat  of  mediaeval  prejudice  is  chronicled 
in  a  modification  of  the  narrowness  of  mediaeval 
architecture.  Arrived  at  this  point,  the  meaning  of 
France's  preceding  long  transition  becomes  clear. 
In  divesting  herself  slowly  and  painfully  of  the  last 
vestiges  of  her  mediaeval  style,  France  was  but 
undergoing  the  necessary  preparation  for  the  role 
she  was  to  adopt ;  the  role  of  a  preacher  of  the 
gospel  of  ideas.  She  was  but  doing  what  Italy,  with 
the  same  end  in  view,  had  found  it  equally  necessary 
to  achieve  three  centuries  earlier.* 

•  On  page  104  of  Mr.  Blomfield's  interesting  "  Studies  in 
Architecture,"  France's  debt  to  Italian  culture  is  duly  recog- 
nised. "  Of  the  service  that  Italy  rendered  to  France  in  the 
matter  of  culture  there  can  be  no  sort  of  doubt.  France 
learnt  from  Italy  the  lesson  of  humanism."  On  the  following 
page  we  find  her  architectural  debt  also  recognised.  "  From 
the  first  Francis  used  every  effort  to  induce  Italian  artists  to 
settle  in  France.  The  Justes  of  Florence  were  already  there, 
and  busy  at  Tours.  Solario,  the  pupil  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
had  been  at  work  in  1508 ;  and  Francis  persuaded  the  great 
master  himself  to  settle  in  France."  After  1527  the  Italian 
influx  increased  and  all  the  chief  earlv  Renaissance  work  was 

233 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
Such  IS  the  testimony  of  France.  That  of 
England,  though  different  in  kind,  is  similar  in 
import.  Our  insensibiHty  to  ideas,  so  elaborately 
analysed  for  us  by  our  chief  literary  critic,  has,  since 
his  day,  been  expatiated  on  to  that  degree  that  we 
may  be  pardoned  for  being  a  little  sick  of  the 
subject.  There  is  no  need  to  dilate  upon  it  here. 
There  are,  perhaps,  signs  which  seem  to  show  that 
the  reproach  will  not  always  be  true  of  us;  but 
however  that  may  be,  no  one  will  deny  that  it  is  true 
of  our  past.  Isolated  and  cut  off  from  Europe,  and 
especially  remote  from  Italy,  it  is  no  wonder  that 
the  steps  by  which  the  English  were  induced  to 
adopt  Renaissance  ideas  were  slower  and  more  un- 
certain than  was  the  case  in  other  countries.  This 
being  so,  no  wonder  too  that  the  spaciousness  in 
architecture  which  goes  with  ideas  should  have  been 
equally  reluctantly  admitted.  The  ideas  and  the 
proportions  indeed  go  so  inevitably  hand  in  hand 
that  words  applicable  to  the  one  are  applicable  to 
the  other.  "  The  steps  by  which  the  English  were 
induced  to  adopt  the  classical  style  were  slower  and 
more  uncertain  than  those  which  preceded  its  intro- 
duction into  other  countries  of  Western  Europe," 


superintended  by  Italians.  Thus  we  have  culture  and 
architectural  forms  coming  in  together.  Mr.  Blomfield  does 
not  note  any  essential  connection  between  the  two :  never- 
theless we  have  only  to  dwell  on  the  meaning  of  that  word 
"culture,"  as  understood  in  Athens  aud  Florence,  with  all  its 
suggestions  of  harmony  and  balance  and  many-sided,  ample 
development,  to  feel  that  between  it  and  the  spacious 
Renaissance  architecture  the  closest  possible  connection  did, 
in  fact,  exist.  Indeed,  it  was  only  in  proportion  as  France 
managed  to  assimilate  the  culture  that  she  was  able  to  evolve 
the  architecti^re. 


234 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

are  Fergusson's  remarks  on  the  reception  of 
Renaissance  architecture  in  England. 

Nor  was  this  only  the  case.  Not  only  was  the 
style  received  very  reluctantly,  but  changes  of  great 
significance  were  wrought  in  it  before  it  was  received 
at  all.  What  those  changes  were  the  reader  will 
easily  guess.  He  will  remember  the  fate  of  the 
vertical  style  when  that  was  introduced  into  Italy, 
and  how  persistently  the  Italians  set  themselves  to 
stretch  and  amplify  its  narrow  proportions  before 
they  would  have  anything  to  do  with  it.  Well,  here 
we  have  the  reverse  process.  Just  as  the  Italians 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  our  narrow  style 
until  they  had  widened  it,  so  we  would  have  nothing 
to  do  with  their  wide  style  until  we  had  narrowed  it. 
St.  Paul's  in  this  respect  is  to  St.  Peter's  at  Rome 
exactly  what  the  Florentine  Cathedral  is  to  West- 
minster Abbey.  The  style  of  St.  Paul's  is,  or  tries 
to  be,  the  style  of  lateral  expansion,  but  of  a  lateral 
expansion  so  cramped  and  curtailed  that  the  general 
character  of  the  interior  is  much  more  closely  akin 
to  the  mediaeval  than  to  the  classic  temper. 

Thus  we  find  not  only  that  the  horizontal  principle 
revived  in  Europe  with  the  love  of  ideas,  but  that  it 
afterwards  kept  pace  with  the  circulation  of  ideas. 
It  developed  its  full  amplitude  where  ideas  were 
freely  welcomed  ;  it  put  forth  a  pinched  aud  meagre 
growth  where  they  were  coldly  and  unwillingly 
entertained.  In  short,  it  acts,  as  was  just  now  said, 
as  a  register  by  which  the  expansion  and  contraction 
of  the  mind  of  Europe  may  be  accurately  gauged. 
Only,  in  order  that  it  may  act  thus,  we  must  make 
up  our  minds  to  deal  with  essentials,  not  accidents. 

23s 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
We  must  not  be  put  off  by  those  plausible  words 
**  taste  "  and  'fashion/'  nor  think  that  the  character 
of  all  architecture  resides  in  acanthus  leaves  and 
pilasters.  We  must  penetrate  beneath  taste  and 
fashion  to  the  mind  of  the  age  on  the  one  hand, 
and  we  must  look  beyond  ornament  and  detail  to 
the  main  proportions  of  the  architecture  on  the 
other. 

A  great  deal  more  evidence  might  be  cited  on  the 
subject,  but  having  attempted  a  general  outline  I 
may  leave  it  to  the  reader  to  add  instances.  He 
will  find  no  lack  of  them.  I  am  not  sure  that  his 
best  way  of  considering  the  subject  would  not  be  to 
compare  broadly  the  times  and  people  belonging 
to  the  two  styles.  For  instance,  if  he  were  to  select 
such  representatives  of  their  age  as  Plato,  Livy, 
Leonardo  da  Vinci  and  Fenelon,  he  would  be 
conscious  of  no  antagonism  in  their  association. 
All  four  would  get  on  well  together  and  have  plenty 
to  say  to  each  other.  But  introduce  a  representative 
of  mediaevalism,  introduce  a  St.  Louis  or  Coeur  de 
Lion,  and  what  a  jar  and  discord  is  created  I  And 
why  ?  Why  should  F6nelon  and  St.  Louis  be 
dumb  to  each  other  while  Fenelon  and  Plato  can 
discuss  the  immortality  of  the  soul  with  mutual 
interest  ?  Because,  of  course,  Fenelon  and  Plato, 
like  Livy  and  Leonardo,  are  intellectualists,  while 
St.  Louis  and  Coeur  de  Lion  are  not.  Merely  to 
imagine  the  juxtaposition  of  such  individuals  is 
enough  to  make  us  conscious  of  the  'gulf  which 
separates  an  age  of  action  from  an  age  of  thought. 
If  to  this  we  add  the  architecture  of  the  time,  taking 
it  as  embodying  the  mind  of  its  ace :  if  we  try  to 
236 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 
imagine  St.  Louis  in  a  classic  portico,  or  Plato  in  a 
Gothic  minster,  we  shall  find  ourselves  struck  by  the 
same  sense  of  absurdity  as  when  we  compare  the 
men  themselves.  The  men  and  their  architecture 
go  together.  To  one  party  belongs  the  vertical 
principle,  to  the  other  the  horizontal.  The  men  of 
action,  with  their  lances  and  plumes,  congregate 
in  the  building  whose  soaring  lines  embody  their 
own  fiery  energy.  The  men  of  ideas  meet  together 
where  the  noble  breadth  of  the  architecture  gives 
room  for  the  play  of  thought. 

Or,  if  the  reader  would  particularise,  let  him 
choose  the  Gothic  period  itself  in  England  for 
examination.  Let  him  trace  from  Henry  IL  to 
Henry  VI IL  the  slow  stretching  of  the  national 
mind,  the  effects  of  the  work  of  universities  and 
other  civilising  influences,  the  gradual  evolution  of 
a  type  of  statesman  and  thinker — Grosseteste,  Roger 
Bacon,  Earl  Simon,  John  Wickliffe,  William  of 
Wykeham,  Colet,  Cranmer,  More,  Wolsey,  Arch- 
bishop Warham  and  many  others — still  insular  it 
may  be,  yet  of  an  ampler  cast  than  is  found  in  the 
earlier  age.  And  having  noted  this,  then  let  him 
look  up  at  the  architecture  and  watch  the  gradual 
drooping  of  the  long  lines  and  their  approach  more 
and  more  to  the  horizontal  in  their  effort  to  express 
a  lateral  expansion  little  in  accordance  with  their 
original  impulse.  Here  he  will  find  again  the  tally 
between  proportion  and  thought,  and  the  expansion 
of  the  architecture  will  register  for  him  a  similar 
expansion  of  mind. 

One  final  instance  I  wish  briefly  to  mention  since 
it  possesses  some  of  the  interest  of  contemporary,  or 

237 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
almost  contemporary,  history.  We  all  know  that 
what  happened  after  the  French  Revolution  was 
that  England  was  thrown  violently  back  upon  her- 
self. Though  we  had  dealt  summarily  at  Waterloo 
with  the  aspect  of  the  movement  most  intelligible  to 
us,  yet  France's  shot-and-steel  propagation  of  ideas 
had  confirmed  us  in  our  original  distrust  of  the 
species. 

An  epoch  of  contraction  followed.  Insular  pre- 
judices and  limitations  reasserted  themselves,  and 
England  became  entirely  cut  off  from  European  life 
and  European  ideas.  This  isolation  took  effect  in 
many  ways.  It  showed  itself  in  the  dullness  and 
ponderous  self-satisfaction  of  Early  Victorian  society 
and  Early  Victorian  art.  But,  above  all,  this  isolation, 
this  severance  from  the  life  and  thought  of  Europe, 
showed  itself  in  a  passionate  revival  of  Gothic 
architecture.  All  the  usual  explanations  of  this 
revival  are  forthcoming.  It  was  due  to  the  influence 
of  two  or  three  individuals,  to  a  revived  interest  of 
the  public  in  the  art  of  building,  to  the  many  models 
of  the  style  existing  in  the  country,  to  the  cheapness 
of  the  material  used  in  its  construction,  and  so  forth. 
Let  us  be  put  off  by  no  such  phrases.  We  reverted 
to  our  old  narrow  style  in  the  nineteenth  century 
for  the  same  reason  that  Italy  reverted  to  her  old 
wide  style  in  the  fifteenth,  because  it  fitted  our 
mental  outlook.  We  saw,  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
the  widening  mind  of  Italy  brought  within  reach 
of  the  horizontal  and  seizing  that.*  We  see  in  the 
nineteenth  century  the  contracting  mind  of  England 
brought  within  reach  of  the  vertical  style  and  seizing 
that.  Wou\l  cot  ^he  reader,  as  he  watched  the  treat- 
238 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

ment  of  the  horizontal  principle  in  England,  its  slow 
and  partial  reception  and  the  changes  and  contrac- 
tions wrought  in  it,  have  said  that  here  was  a  country 
which  needed  but  a  strong  set-back  in  ideas  to  be 
thrown  once  more  into  the  arms  of  the  old  narrow 
style  after  which  it  was  still  evidently  hankering  ? 

Thus,  we  have  attempted  some  answer  to  the 
question  with  which  we  set  out  as  to  the  meaning 
of  the  vertical  and  horizontal  principles  in  architec- 
ture. We  find  that  the  former  stands  for  energy, 
and  is  the  outcome  of  an  age  which  glorified  energy 
and  made  it  a  vehicle  for  the  expression  of  all  ideals. 
We  find  that  the  latter  stands  for  thought  and  the 
free  play  of  intellect,  and  that  its  great  epochs  are 
distinguished  and  related  to  each  other  across  the 
ages  by  their  love  of  ideas.  Further,  we  find  that 
these  two  principles  measure  for  us  the  play  of  mind 
of  Europe,  and  that  free  circulation  of  ideas  or 
reversion  to  local  standards  is  indicated  in  the 
corresponding  expansion  or  contraction  of  the 
architecture  of  that  place  and  period.  Whether  this 
interpretation  will  meet  with  the  reader's  acceptance 
I  do  not  know,  but  I  will  venture  to  affirm  that,  even 
if  it  be  accepted,  Gothic  architecture  will  not,  on  the 
whole,  be  the  loser.  Lose  in  some  respects,  no 
doubt,  it  inevitably  will.  We  should  no  longer,  if 
we  accept  it,  agree  with  Ruskin  when  he  says  that 
Gothic  is  the  most  perfect  style  of  building  that  ever 
has  or  ever  can  exist ;  or  with  Mr.  Lethaby  when  he 
declares  in  his  excellent  **  Mediaeval  Art "  that  our 
Gothic  cathedrals  are  "  more  than  buildings,  more 
than  art,''  that  ''  their  seeming  perfections  are  but 
parts  of  a  larger  perfection,"  and  that  "  from  which- 

239 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
ever  point  of  view  we  may  approach  them  the  great 
cathedrals  satisfy  us."  We  should  observe,  once 
and  for  all,  that  no  really  first-class  art  or  first-class 
poetry  could  by  any  possibility  have  issued  from 
Northern  Europe  in  the  twelfth  or  thirteenth 
century,  because  the  intellectual  ripeness  which  goes 
to  the  making  of  first-rate  art  and  poetry  did  not 
there  and  then  exist.  We  should  not  pretend  that 
Gothic  religion,  even,  could  satisfy  us  any  more ; 
for  if  there  is  one  thing  certain  to-day  it  is  that 
religion  henceforth  must  include  the  mind,  that  it 
must  express  the  intellectual  as  well  as  the  spiritual, 
and  be  the  result  of  the  harmonious  development  of 
a  man's  whole  nature.  We  should  feel  that  in  these 
days  less  than  ever  can  Gothic  content  us.  For  thj 
work  of  the  past  century,  its  discoveries  and  inven- 
tions and  science,  have  rendered  isolation  henceforth 
impossible,  and  our  participation  in  the  life  and 
ideas  of  Europe  inevitable.  In  a  word,  the  spirit  of 
the  age  is  making  for  expansion.  It  has  outgrown 
Gothic,  and,  unless  we  would  lay  up  for  ourselves 
the  sure  unhappiness  which  attends  the  resolve  to 
cleave  to  that  which  time  has  resolved  to  abandon, 
we  must  do  the  same. 

But,  allowing  all  this,  there  would  be  other  respects 
in  which  Gothic  architecture  would  gain  heavily. 
By  putting  it  back  amid  its  own  surroundings  we 
should  endow  it  once  more  with  human  interest  and 
significance.  The  theory  it  embodied,  the  theory 
that  eternal  truths  can  be  expressed  in  terms  of 
action,  may  have  been  a  delusion.  We  know  now 
that  it  was  a  delusion.  Nevertheless  it  was  a  great  and 
splendid  delusion.  For  a  century  it  was  acclaimed ; 
240 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 
for  a  second  century  it  was  clung  to ;  during  a 
third  it  was  gradually  abandoned.  During  these 
three  centuries  this  great  delusion  dominates  the  life 
of  Europe  and  of  this  mighty  influence  Gothic 
architecture  is  the  sole  adequate  surviving  manifes- 
tation. Here  lies  its  true  and  lasting  value.  It  is 
the  clue  to  the  secret  of  three  centuries  of  history. 
The  unanimity  of  the  impulse  behind  it  gives  it  a 
human  and  historical  significance  unparalleled  in 
art.  If  we  accept  this  as  its  claim  upon  our  regard, 
though  to  do  this  will  involve  a  full  recognition  of 
the  limitations  which  the  style  shares  with  its  age, 
we  may  find  that  it  will  gain  in  human  interest  far 
more  than  it  will  lose  in  aesthetic  glamour. 


241 


CHAPTER  IX 

SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 

Breakdown  of  classic  intellectualism  :  West  and  East  in 
contact  :  The  West  imbibes  the  Eastern  thought  of  spiritual 
vision  :  Effect  seen  in  Hellenistic  sculpture  :  Character  of 
that  sculpture  :  Its  now  indefinite  hopes  and  fears  :  Loss 
of  the  old  serenity  and  calm  :  Parallel  between  Hellenistic 
and  Renaissance  art  :  The  Florentine  intellectualism  :  The 
presence  of  a  spiritual  religion  in  the  midst  of  it  :  Consequent 
inability  to  realise  the  classic  ideal  :  Savonarola  :  Kis 
teaching  and  influence  :  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent  :  Blending 
of  spiritual  and  pagan  motives  :  Michelangelo  :  The  conflict 
in  his  art  between  the  act  of  definition  and  thought  which 
refuses  definition  :  He  expresses  the  conflicting  ideals  of  his 

age 

IN  an  earlier  chapter  something  was  said  of  the 
intellectual  nature  of  sculpture  and  the  consequent 
affinity  which  existed  between  the  art  of  sculpture 
and  the  Greek  temperament.  The  Greek  tempera- 
ment, it  was  pointed  out,  in  love  with  definition, 
essentially  intellectual,  addicted  to  clear-cut  ideas 
on  all  subjects,  and  instinctively  distrusting  the 
necessary  vagueness  of  emotional  apprehension,  was 
a  medium  by  which  all  motives  and  conceptions 
were  prepared  and  made  ready  for  the  sculptor. 
Greek  ideas  on  all  subjects  are  exact  and  definite. 
They  possess,  that  is  to  say,  the  attributes  of  form. 
This  being  so,  the  sculptor  has  no  preparatory 
struggles  to  go  through  to  consolidate  his  vision. 
Thoughts  which  have  been  given  exact  form  meet  the 
2|3 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 

art  of  form  half  way  and  drop  into  marble  almost 
of  their  own  accord. 

But  if  this  is  so,  if  Greek  sculpture  is  governed 
and  conditioned  by  the  clear-thoughted  quality  of 
the  Greek  intellect,  how  did  the  sculpture  fare  when 
Greek  intellectualism  lost  its  classic  purity  ?  The 
change  in  the  Greek  outlook,  as  the  reader  knows, 
followed,  and  is  evidently  dependent  on  certain 
political  events.  The  conquests  of  Alexander  to- 
wards the  close  of  the  fourth  century  B.C.  brought 
the  East  and  West  in  contact,  and  it  is  on  that 
account  rather  than  in  their  magnitude  and  extent 
that  those  conquests  constitute  one  of  the  most 
momentous  events  in  history.  Already,  it  is  true, 
the  Greek  had  shot  his  bolt.  He  had  worked  at  the 
intellectual  vein  until  he  had  worked  it  out.  By 
the  exercise  of  its  own  intellectual  methods  the 
classic  mind  was  brought  to  a  recognition  of  the 
insufficiency  of  a  purely  intellectual  interpretation  of 
life,  and  to  a  dim  perception,  even,  of  the  faculties 
which  take  cognisance  of  the  infinite.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  emotional  and  spiritual  side  of  life, 
stirred  already,  was  of  a  sudden  stimulated  by  the 
infusion  of  Eastern  ideas,  and,  thus  reinforced, 
burst  the  barriers  which  intellectualism  had  con- 
structed for  its  own  defence.  The  Macedonian 
Imperialism  opened  to  the  Greek  a  new  world  of 
ideas.  The  view  of  life  which  he  now  found  him- 
self in  contact  with  was  precisely  the  view  which 
the  Classic  Age  had  so  consistently  discountenanced 
and  the  classic  intellect  had  so  severely  held  in 
check.  Already  disenchanted,  however,  with  his 
own  ideas,  he  proceeded  to  assimilate  Eastern  ones, 

243 


THE  WORKS  OF  AiAN 
and  especially  he  thirstily  quaffed  at  the  spring  of 
mystical  thought  of  which  the  East  is  the  abound- 
ing and  perennial  source. 

It  is  always  the  case  that  spiritual  and  emotional 
influences,  more  impalpable  in  their  nature,  are 
less  distinct  in  their  modes  of  action  than  in- 
tellectual and  rational  influences.  Of  the  two 
classes  of  ideas  which  the  Greek  race  has  developed 
or  transmitted,  the  intellectual  class,  coincident 
with  its  national  unity  and  expressed  in  definite 
terms,  seems,  at  least,  of  far  the  greatest  import- 
ance. Still,  the  more  carefully  the  reader  considers 
the  nature  of  the  conflicting  impulses  which  have 
controlled  the  life  of  Europe,  and  the  more  he 
searches  for  the  causes  of  the  difference  between 
classic  and  modern  life,  the  greater  will  be  the 
weight  he  will  probably  attach  to  the  interpretative 
work  of  the  Greeks  in  the  spiritual  sphere,  for  the 
greater  will  seem  the  effect  of  the  current  of  Eastern 
emotionalism  to  which  the  Greeks  acted  as  con- 
ductors. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  enter  into  an  account 
of  Graeco-Oriental  ideas  ;  what  we  have  to  note  is 
that,  from  the  time  of  the  breaking  down  of  the 
barriers  between  East  and  West,  the  simplicity  and 
precision  which  had  accrued  to  classic  thought 
from  its  resolute  rejection  of  the  infinite  and  the 
abstract,  and  its  resolute  insistence  on  the  concrete 
and  the  definite,  were  rendered  impossible  by  the 
admission  into  the  Western  mind  of  the  Eastern 
mystical  thought  of  spiritual  vision.  This  was  fatal 
to  the  reign  of  intellectualism,  for  it  dissolved  the 
very  limits  which  had  held  and  contained  in- 
244 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 

tellectualism.  Henceforth  the  West  was  never  to 
be  free  from  a  haunting  consciousness  of  the  in- 
finite, never  to  be  really  happy  and  at  rest  in  the 
world  of  appearances.  Immerse  herself  though  she 
might  in  her  studies  and  sciences,  propose  though 
she  might  intellectual  solutions  of  all  problems  and 
enigmas,  there  were  yet,  mixed  in  her  blood,  needs 
which  intellect  could  not  satisfy  and  aspirations  to 
which  intellect  could  never  respond  ;  so  that,  to 
this  day,  her  moments  of  greatest  intellectual 
achievement  are  quite  lacking  in  the  pagan  calm- 
ness and  sincerity,  and  the  sickening  conviction  is 
never  far  from  her  that  the  very  modes  of  intel- 
lectual perception  are  themselves  questionable. 

In  Hellenistic  sculpture  the  change  in  the  mind 
of  the  age  is  at  once  apparent.  Standing  on  the 
threshold  of  the  movement,  the  last  of  the  great 
Greeks,  the  last  preserver  of  the  tradition  of  classic 
self-control,  yet  shaken,  already,  by  new  thoughts 
and  emotions,  one  of  the  most  interesting  figures 
in  the  art  of  this  epoch  is  undoubtedly  Lysippus. 
The  portraits  of  Alexander  which  remain  to  us  from 
his  hand  or  school  inseparably  connect  the  names 
of  the  sculptor  and  the  king.  On  independent 
testimony,  however,  it  seems  evident  that  the 
sculptor  was  working  as  early  as  368,  and  there  is  no 
evidence  to  show  that  he  lived  long  enough  to  profit 
or  suffer  materially  by  the  current  of  ideas  for  which 
his  great  patron  opened  a  path.  Mr.  Gardner  places 
his  activity  between  the  years  366  and  316.  Yet 
even  on  Lysippus  the  shadow  of  the  future  falls. 
The  antique  type,  self-sufficient,  calmly  posed,  the 
finest  vindication  the  world  has  seen  of  the  unaided 

24s 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
dignity  of  man,  this  type,  in  which  the  most  human 
of  the  arts  had,  as  it  were,  its  stronghold,  is  for 
Lysippus  already  obsolete.  The  traits  that  engage 
attention  are  already  those  which  hint  at  the 
mystery  of  the  human  lot.  They  are  the  subtle, 
pathetic  and  wistful  traits  which  disclose  them- 
selves in  individual  expression,  and  are  conveyed 
in  the  slightest  and  most  sensitive  inflections  of  a 
lip,  an  eyebrow  or  a  nostril.  While  the  ideal  of 
Phidias  and  his  contemporaries  suggests  a  fixity 
and  assurance  of  thought  amounting  almost  to 
philosophic  dogma,  the  ideal  of  Lysippus  and  his 
contemporaries  suggests,  on  the  contrary,  the  be- 
ginning of  a  search,  a  quest,  a  groping  in  the  void. 
Hellenistic  art,  closely  following  on  Lysippus,  is 
itself  divided  in  its  aims.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
ancient  tradition,  drained  of  vitality  yet  preserving 
something  of  its  prestige,  tends,  as  is  always  the  way 
in  such  cases,  to  harden  and  stereotype  into  fixed 
generalisations ;  on  the  other,  the  new  experimental 
impulse,  inclining  to  the  exploration  of  subtle  ideas 
and  shades  of  character,  wears  down  ever  more  irre- 
mediably the  old  bounds  and  limitations.  In  his 
recent  book  on  Greek  sculpture,  Mr.  Gardner  ob- 
serves that  during  the  earlier  part  of  the  Hellenistic 
age  the  influence  of  Praxiteles,  Scopas  and  Lysippus 
remains  paramount,  though  variously  blended  : 

"The  isolation  of  the  various  schools  seems  to 
have  been  to  a  great  extent  broken  down  ;  and  as 
after  the  conquests  of  Alexander,  first  a  Panhellenic 
and  then  even  a  cosmopolitan  spirit  prevailed,  so  in 
sculpture  also  it  would  depend  more  upon  the  in- 
246 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 
dividual  predilections  of  the  artist  than  on  his  local 
origin  to  which  of  the  earlier  masters  he  looked 
chiefly  for  inspiration.  Much  might  also  depend 
upon  the  subject  with  which  he  was  dealing.  If 
grace  and  beauty  of  form  were  his  chief  aim,  he 
would  follow  the  lead  of  Praxiteles  ;  if  passion  and 
dramatic  force,  that  of  Scopas ;  while  those  who 
sought  cither  to  carry  still  further  the  special  study 
of  athletic  types,  or  to  commemorate  historical 
events  by  monumental  sculptures,  looked  mainly  to 
Lysippus  as  their  master." 

Mr.  Gardner  adds  that  the  Pergamene  school,  though 
owing  much  to  Scopas,  should  be  ranked  among 
the  followers  of  Lysippus.  It  may,  however,  be 
pointed  out  that  all  this,  though  true,  is  open  to 
misinterpretation.  If  the  Hellenistic  style  is  to  be 
recognised  as  a  distinct  phase  or  development  in 
the  history  of  sculpture  it  must  be  associated  with 
a  distinct  motive.  It  is,  no  doubt,  difficult  to  do 
this,  because  no  hard  and  fast  line  of  separation 
between  this  and  the  earlier  style  is  anywhere  trace- 
able. The  trio  of  great  sculptors  who  served  as  the 
models  of  early  Hellenistic  art  were  themselves  in 
process  of  abandoning  the  ancient  ideals  of  the 
Greek  race,  and  there  is  some  doubt  whether  to  call 
them,  in  certain  aspects  of  their  work,  the  last  of 
the  Greeks  or  the  first  of  the  Hellenists.  Still,  a 
growth,  though  gradual,  may  attain  a  point  at 
which  it  is  open  to  fresh  classification.  Hellenism, 
in  the  evolution  of  Greek  sculpture,  marks  such  a 
point.  Mr.  Gardner  would,  I  think,  agree  that  what 
is  vital  and  distinctive  in  the  Hellenist  movement  is 

247 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
not  so  much  the  imitative  traits  in  it  and  its  cling- 
ing to  precedent  examples  as  the  fact  that  it  exhibits 
a  growing  impatience  of  the  classical  tradition,  and 
an  increasing  endeavour  to  reach  out  into  hitherto 
unexplored  regions  of  thought  and  emotion.  With 
regard  to  the  Pergamene  school,  Mr.  Gardner  sup- 
plies us  with  an  illustration  of  the  warrior's  head  in 
the  British  Museum,  on  which  he  makes  the  follow- 
ing significant  comments : 

"  In  the  intense  expression  of  the  eyes,  and  the 
way  they  are  shadowed  by  the  brow,  we  recognise  a 
treatment  derived  from  Scopas;  but  in  the  rough 
and  matted  hair,  the  knotted  and  exaggerated  ren- 
dering of  sinews  and  veins,  and  the  restless  and 
mobile  brow,  there  is  a  contrast  to  the  restraint  and 
moderation  which  is  never  absent  from  fourth- 
century  work,  even  if  it  be  as  vigorous  as  the 
Tegea  heads  or  the  portrait  of  Alexander.  The 
modern  effect  produced  by  such  a  head  as  this,  in 
which 

'  New  hopes  shine  through  the  flesh  they  fray, 
New  fears  aggrandise  the  rags  and  tatters,' 

anticipates  in  many  ways  the  Christian  art  of  a 
later  date,  and  suggests  at  the  same  time  that  the 
reason  why  such  things  are  not  found  in  Hellenic 
art  is  not  because  earlier  sculptors  could  not  but 
because  they  would  not  produce  them." 

The  unruly  influence  of  the  new  spiritual  thoughts 
which  were  coming  in  could  not  be  better  in- 
dicated ;  but  how  could  the  earlier  sculptors  have 
been  open  to  such  an  influence  ?  The  sense  of 
248 


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H|^  ' 

■■^H 

'"•^JSliC^j^^^^^^^B 

P? 

^^ki^. 

Warrior's  Head.      Late  Greek  work  of  the  era   when  classic  thought 
was  admittifig  and  deing  troubled  by  Eastern  emotionalism 

SPECIMEN  OF  HELLENISTIC  SCULPTURE.    BRITISH  MUSEUM    p.2^S 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 
struggle  and  effort,  the  new  hopes  and  new  fears 
which  distinguish  this  Hellenistic  work,  and  which 
ally  it  so  obviously  to  modern  examples,  are  the 
characteristics,  the  note,  of  the  life  of  Hellenism. 
How  could  the  earlier  generations,  which  knew 
nothing  of  these  hopes  and  fears,  embody  them  in 
form  ?  How  could  they  give  utterance  to  hopes 
they  had  never  entertained  and  fears  they  had  never 
experienced  ?  Does  there  not  seem  here  to  be  some 
lack  of  clearness  in  Mr.  Gardner's  analysis,  and  does 
not  that  lack  of  clearness  arise  from  his  not  having 
held  sufficiently  in  view  the  mental  conditions  out 
of  which  the  old  and  new  sculpture  arose  ? 

Suppose  we  try  to  state  the  case,  putting  the 
mental  factor  first.  Greek  sculpture,  at  its  prime 
and  in  its  great  days,  was  the  consequence  and 
effect  of  the  thought  of  its  age.  That  thought, 
nobly  rational  in  character,  was  distinct  in  its  pro- 
cesses and  definite  in  its  statements.  The  art  that 
came  to  meet  the  thought  coincided  exactly  with 
it  in  character,  and  hence  it  follows  that  Greek 
sculpture  of  this  period,  whatever  may  be  its  pos- 
sible limitations,  is  the  most  perfect  phase  through 
which  the  art  has  passed.  But  by  degrees  the 
thought  itself  changed.  Worn  thin  already,  it 
yielded  to  an  influx  of  spiritual  ideas  and  emotions 
administered  through  contact  with  the  East,  and 
forthwith  a  corresponding  change  affected  art. 
The  new  ideas  endeavoured,  in  their  turn,  to  get 
themselves  expressed  in  marble.  But  they  were 
not,  like  the  old  ideas,  adapted  to  such  a  transition 
Indefinite,  tentative,  vague,  they  rebelled  against  the 
limits  of  form,  and  refused  to  submit  themselves 

249 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
to  exact  definition,  and  hence  the  restlessness,  the 
struggle  and  the  effort  which  we  distinguish  as  the 
marks  of  the  Hellenistic  style. 

Taking  this  view  of  the  matter,  we  may  say  that 
here  again  we  have  a  sufficiently  vivid  illustration 
of  contemporary  life  and  thought  offered  us  by  art. 
In  dealing  with  the  rise  of  Greek  art  I  drew  atten- 
tion to  the  striking  representation  which  that  art,  in 
its  growing  naturalism  and  sense  of  reality,  gives  us 
of  the  dawn  of  the  intellectual  faculty.  Intellect 
has  played  a  great  part  in  the  world  since  the  days 
of  the  Greeks,  and  in  the  new  realism  of  early 
Greek  art,  working  like  a  leaven  among  the  old 
artistic  conventions,  we  are  able  to  observe  almost 
its  birth  and  the  character  of  its  earliest  efforts.  So 
in  the  case  of  Hellenistic  art  we  are  conscious  also 
of  being  present  at  a  birth  ;  but  it  is  the  spiritual 
faculty,  intellect's  great  rival,  whose  advent  we  now 
discern.  The  old  barriers  break  up,  depths  open 
where  a  hard  surface  had  been,  new  aspirations 
invade  men's  minds,  and  a  sense  of  spiritual  mystery 
falls  upon  and  enwraps  them.  For  the  first  time 
Greek  thought  becomes  troubled  and  inarticulate. 
Through  a  thousand  channels  the  mysticism  which 
was  to  exert  so  powerful  an  influence  on  Europe's 
development  was  filtering  westward.  Such  are  the 
influences  to  which,  in  the  new  style  of  sculpture, 
the  marble  responds.  It  is  but  a  picture,  after  all, 
of  the  mind  of  its  age.  Ruffled  already  by  the 
soul's  agitation,  Hellenistic  sculpture  is  embarked 
on  a  voyage  of  discovery  that  is  not  ended  yet. 
"  Modern,"  Mr.  Gardner  calls  it,  and  modern  indeed 
it  is,  for  the  problem  of  how  to  express  infinite 
250 


The  yielding  of  the  classic  sense.     Showing  the  weakening  of  the  feeling  for 
form  and  the  7-estraints  it  necessitates. 

FROM  THE  COLUMN  OF  M.  AURELIUS.     MIRACLE  OF  THE  RAIN       /.  250 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 

ideas  in  terms  of  finite  form  is  the  problem  that 
occupies  us  stilh 

I  would  call  attention  briefly  to  the  later  treat- 
ment of  that  problem.  It  scarcely  needs  to  be 
stated  that  the  dominating  characteristic  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance  is  the  spirit  of  vivid  intellec- 
tualism  which  is  so  strongly  reminiscent  of  the 
Greek  prime.  The  actual  results  obtained  by 
Renaissance  thought  were  nothing  very  consider- 
able, and  stood  often  on  not  over-secure  founda- 
tions, but  the  impetus  it  gave  to  the  mind  of 
Europe  was  incalculable.  To  its  guesses  we  owe 
our  certainties.  The  Renaissance  is  the  greatest 
extant  testimony  to  the  truth  that  far  more  happiness 
is  derived  from  the  activity  of  the  mind  itself  than 
from  any  fruits  which  that  activity  may  yield.  Man 
is  ever  in  search  of  happiness,  and  it  was  the  dis- 
covery of  the  long-forgotten  fact,  that  intellectual 
activity  is  a  source  of  happiness,  which  placed  Italy, 
and  especially  Florence,  in  the  position  of  guide 
and  mentor  to  the  rest  of  Europe.  For  the  rest, 
the  character  of  this  mental  activity,  in  which 
Florence  led  the  way,  is  sufficiently  obvious.  Intel- 
lect is  the  faculty  which  defines,  observes,  analyses* 
There  is  little  that  is  sensuous  and  emotional  in 
Florentine  thought.  It  is  active,  not  passive.  It 
does  not  receive  impressions,  but  seeks  distinctions. 
It  is  subtle  and  fine  in  analysis.  It  does  not 
regard  any  subject  as  beyond  the  reach  of  intel- 
lectual interpretation,  nor  does  it  greatly  care  to 
follow  any  line  of  inquiry  beyond  the  phase  of 
definition.  In  short,  as  was  of  course  bound  to  be 
the  case,  there  are  the  strongest    mental  resem- 

251 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
blances,  amounting  in  many  respects  to  identity, 
between  the  age  of  intellect's  birth  and  the  age  of 
intellect's  awakening ;  between  the  Athens  of  the 
fifth  century  B.C.  and  the  Florence  of  the  fifteenth 
century  A.D. 

Considering  this  similitude  in  mental  stimulus 
and  the  spirit  of  the  age,  we  should  naturally  look 
for  and  expect  a  corresponding  degree  of  similitude 
in  artistic  product.  And  this  similitude  we,  of 
course,  find.  Florentine  art,  like  Attic  art,  is  essen- 
tially an  art  of  form.  Form  advanced  to  meet 
Florentine  ideas  almost  as  readily  as  it  had  advanced 
to  meet  Greek  ideas. 

Between  Attic  and  Florentine  sculpture  there  is 
this  fundamental  resemblance,  that  both  are  prose- 
cuted with  the  zest  and  natural  ease  with  which  a 
people  adopt  the  kind  of  art  suited  to  their  genius. 
Florentine  painting  takes  the  lead  of  other  Italian 
painting,  but  still  other  Italian  painting  exists,  and 
is  important.  But  when  we  come  to  the  art  which 
is  pre-eminently,  by  the  laws  of  its  own  nature,  the 
art  of  form — to  sculpture,  that  is  to  say — Florence 
practically  monopolises  the  whole  field.  It  is  here 
she  is  most  "  in  her  element."  Though  the  sister 
cities  of  Pisa  and  Siena  made  the  first  definite  start, 

"Florence  by  the  thirteenth  century  had  taken 
the  lead ;  the  sculpture  of  the  Renaissance  had  its 
birth  here,  here  it  went  through  all  the  phases  of  its 
development,  and  here,  finally,  its  transition  to  the 
baroque  was  prepared.  As  antique  sculpture  cul- 
minates in  Greece,  so  that  of  the  Christian  epoch 
finds  its  crowning  expression  in  the  plastic  art  of 
252 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 
Florence.  In  two  cities  only  has  that  branch  of  art 
been  able  to  attain  to  its  full  and  glorious  prime  in 
unrestrained  freedom — in  Athens  and  in  Florence." 

The  general  truth  of  these  observations,  taken 
from  Professor  Bode's  recent  work  on  Florentine 
sculpture,  will  not  be  questioned.  It  will  not  be 
denied  that  in  spontaneity  and  fluency  Florentine 
sculpture  approaches  Athenian.] 

Yet,  if  both  speak  the  same  language  with  the 
same  freedom,  they  speak  it  with  a  very  different 
accent.  The  course  of  Florentine  sculpture  is  ruled 
by  none  of  the  high  and  grave  conceptions  of  the 
functions  of  the  art  which  carried  such  weight  with 
the  Greeks.  It  is  restless  where  Greek  art  is  serene, 
experimental  and  tentative  where  Greek  art  is  steadily 
coherent,  uncertain  of  its  own  aims  and  purposes 
where  Greek  art  is  calmly  self-confident.  Critics 
have  argued  that  these  discrepancies  and  defects,  as 
they  apparently  are,  in  Florentine  work  may  have 
been  due  to  ignorance  of  the  Greek  masterpieces. 
It  was,  it  is  urged,  from  the  muddy  stream  of 
Roman  rather  than  the  purer  springs  of  Attic  art 
that  the  Italians  drew  their  models  in  sculpture,  and 
to  that  taint  in  its  source  the  derelictions  of  their 
art  should  be  ascribed.  But  can  we  imagine  Dona- 
tello  and  Michelangelo,  whatever  their  tutelage, 
other  than  they  were  ?  The  early  phases  of  the 
development  of  the  art  might,  and  no  doubt  would, 
have  been  different.  Niccolo  Pisano  would  have 
been  the  last  of  the  Greeks  instead  of  the  last  of  the 
Romans.  But  would  that  have  affected  the  later 
course  and  character  of  the  art  ?    To  imagine  that 

253 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
it  could  have  done  so  is  to  form,  it  seems  to  me,  but 
a  slighting  estimate  of  the  living  forces  which  were 
feeding  Renaissance  art.  These  were  not,  I  imagine, 
of  so  feeble  a  kind  as  submissively  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  this  style  or  that.  If  the  first  essays  of 
Renaissance  sculpture  accepted  Roman  guidance, 
the  imitative  phase  only  lasted  until  the  art  had 
established  contact  with  contemporary  life.  The 
Florentine  sculptors  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries  are  no  more  Roman  than  they  are  Greek. 
They  are  themselves.  The  art  they  practise  is  not 
an  imitative  but  an  original  and  living  art ;  and  it  is 
so  because  it  is  the  expression  of  living  ideas.  In 
short,  it  is  not  among  extraneous  influences  but 
within  the  life  of  Italy  itself  that  we  must  seek  for 
the  causes  of  the  differences  as  well  as  the  resem- 
blances between  Florentine  and  Athenian  sculpture. 
In  considering  the  inward  life  of  the  two  states  in 
connection  with  the  art  evolved  by  either,  two  points 
of  difference  seem  most  noteworthy.  Both,  as  we 
have  said — both  Athens  and  Florence — were  in  cast 
of  thought  preponderatingly  intellectual ;  this  ex- 
plains the  bias  of  both  in  favour  of  the  arts  of  form. 
But  in  its  control  of  life  the  intellectualism  of 
Florence  went  much  less  far  than  the  intellectualism 
of  Athens.  Athenian  life  aspired  to  regulate  and 
direct  itself  through  the  intellect,  on  the  basis 
of  a  system  of  rational  ethics.  The  dictates  of 
reason  in  regard  to  right  conduct  and  the  concep- 
tion of  ideal  characteristics  were  authoritative. 
Now  what  were  those  characteristics  ?  Self-control, 
moderation,  serenity,  right  proportion,  harmony, 
symmetry — these,  as  we  figure  the  Greek  ideal  man. 

254 


Note  the  boldness  with  ivhich  the  expression  is  rendered.       When  it  zvas  a 
question  of  spiritual  emotion  the  medieval  artist  iimply  could  not  go  zvrong 
SPECIMEN  OF  GOTHIC  SCULPTURE.     REIMS  CATHEDRAL  /.  254 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 
are  the  epithets  which  rise  to  our  Hps  to  describe 
him.  But  these,  as  the  reader  will  see,  are  words 
very  susceptible  of  artistic  appHcation.  I  have 
already  attempted  to  deal  with  the  influence  of 
Greek  ethics  on  Greek  art  as  exhibited  particularly 
in  Doric  architecture,  and  must  not  dilate  on  the 
point  here ;  but  the  reader  will  see  at  once  that 
where  we  have  an  intellectual  system  of  this  sort  in 
authority,  where  symmetry  and  harmony  and  the 
rest  of  them  were  reverenced  as  principles  to  live 
by,  there  we  have  also  a  system  ready  made  for 
application  to  art ;  a  system  which  would  control 
and  govern  art  as  appropriately  as  it  controlled  and 
governed  life.  In  truth  it  is  impossible  for  any  one 
at  all  open  to  such  influences  to  contemplate  typical 
examples  of  Greek  sculpture  without  being  conscious 
that  they  do  in  fact  illustrate  in  their  own  personali- 
ties the  beauty  of  the  ethical  principles  in  which  they 
were  conceived  :  without  being  conscious,  that  is  to 
say,  that  the  Greeks  turned  ethical  principles  into 
artistic  laws. 

But  the  Renaissance  never  got  to  this ;  even 
Florence  fell  far  short  of  it.  Strive  as  she  might  to 
recapture  the  classic  point  of  view  Florence  never 
succeeded  in  reinstating  the  intellectual  faculty  in 
its  old  position  as  ethical  lawgiver  to  life.  And 
failing  in  this  her  sculpture  pays  the  penalty.  The 
qualities  of  harmony,  self-control,  proportion,  sym- 
metry, and  so  on,  not  being  accepted  as  laws  of 
life,  could  not  be,  and  never  were,  passed  on  into 
art :  could  not  become  laws  of  art.  The  loss  is 
tremendous,  irreparable.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
whole  range  of  Renaissance  sculpture  that  touches, 

25s 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
however  faintly,  that  note  of  tranquil  and  majestic 
self-sufficiency  which  belongs  to  the  great  figures  of 
the  Parthenon  pediment. 

The  loss,  I  say,  is  irreparable,  and  seems  at  a 
blow  to  degrade  sculpture  from  its  ancient  office  of 
a  witness  to  the  truth  and  a  support  to  human 
nature,  and  to  cast  it  down  among  men  to  become 
the  instrument  and  prey  of  individual  caprice.  But 
there  is,  as  I  said,  a  second  point  of  difference 
between  Classic  and  Renaissance  sculpture,  and  this 
seems  to  offer  some  slight  compensation  for  the 
loss  incurred  on  the  first  count.  It  need  scarcely 
be  pointed  out  that  the  reason  the  men  of  the 
Renaissance  declined,  or  were  unable,  to  accept  a 
rational  philosophy  as  supreme  guide  to  life,  was 
not  because  they  aspired  to  dispense  with  a  guide 
altogether  but  because  they  already  had  one.  It  is 
customary  to  make  very  light  of  the  religion  of  the 
Renaissance,  and  no  doubt  in  so  treating  it  we  are 
but  following  the  lead  of  the  Renaissance  itself. 
But,  however  lightly  religion  might  be  regarded, 
there  the  religion  was.  In  so  far  as  men  strove  to 
lean  exclusively  on  the  intellectual  faculty  they 
might  weaken  or  atrophy  the  religious  sense  in 
them,  and  it  is  probable  that  if  we  were  to  analyse 
the  characters  of  most  of  the  consummate  villains 
whose  murders  and  treacheries  and  unbridled 
licentiousness  grace  the  epoch,  we  should  find  that 
their  pre-eminence  in  vice  was  the  consequence  of 
their  falling  between  the  two  stools  of  a  spiritual 
standard  they  had  repudiated  and  an  ethical 
standard  they  had  never  attained  to.  They  were 
emancipated  equally  from  the  laws  of  God  and  man, 
256 


Notice  hoiv  the  artist's  mind  is  concentrated  on  the 
expression  of  spiritual  emotio7t  in  the  face  of  the 
kneeling  figure 

VISirATION.     LUCA  DEI^LA  ROBBIA.     PISTOIA 

/.  256 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 
It  would  arguC;  however,  a  superficial  knowledge  of 
human  nature  if  we  were  to  deduce  from  such  indivi- 
dual examples  the  conclusion  that  Christianity  as  an 
influence  had  ceased  to  operate.  The  signs  to  the 
contrary  are  too  many  and  significant  to  be  gain- 
said., The  religious  motive  was  constantly  manifested 
in  life  and  constantly  manifested  in  art.  It  stood, 
weak  or  strong,  in  place  of  the  Greek  ethical  motive 
and  exercised,  as  that  had  done,  a  direct  influence 
upon  art. 

But  its  influence  was  of  a  very  different  kind. 
Being  in  its  essence  spiritural  rather  than  intellectual, 
it  did  not  lend  itself,  as  its  rival  had  done,  to  the 
process  of  form  delineation.  The  Christian  ideals, 
charity,  humility,  surrender  to  God's  will,  &c.,  can- 
not, like  the  classic  ideals,  symmetry,  harmony,  pro- 
portion, be  readily  converted  into  principles  of  art ; 
nor  will  ideas  which  have  been  dipped  in  the  vague 
aspirations,  hopes,  fears  and  surmises,  which  haunt 
the  Christianised  imagination,  submit  to  concrete 
definition  with  the  readiness  of  the  clear-cut  distinc- 
tions of  Greek  thought.  We  have  seen  already,  in  the 
case  of  Hellenistic  sculpture,  how  mental  indefinite- 
ness  acted  on  the  arts  of  Greece,  and  we  shall  discern 
the  same  phenomenon,  in  a  more  marked  degree,  in 
the  case  of  Renaissance  sculpture. 

If  the  reader  will  turn  his  attention  for  a  moment 
to  the  culmination  of  the  Renaissance  movement,  he 
will  easily  distinguish  the  existing  conflict  of  motives 
in  the  life  of  the  age  together  with  the  effect  of  that 
conflict  on  art.  Take  him  for  all  in  all,  we  may  say 
that  II  Magnifico  is  a  worthy  representative  of  the 
pagan  Renaissance,  and  that  the  amplitude  of  his 

R  257 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
culture  and  splendour  of  his  talents  are  themselves 
a  high  testimony  to  the  depth  and  genuineness  of 
the  soil  that  nourished  them.  It  was,  perhaps, 
during  the  period  of  his  ascendancy  that  the 
Renaissance  as  a  revival,  as  an  attempt,  that  is, 
to  live  on  classic  ideas,  most  nearly  achieved  success. 
A  careless  glance,  misled  by  the  enthusiasm  and 
animation  with  which  the  leading  actors  threw 
themselves  into  their  parts,  might  almost  deem  the 
success  complete ;  but  a  closer  scrutiny,  even  of 
that  enthusiasm  and  that  animation,  would  quickly 
undeceive  it.  For  this  classical  fervour  is  in  truth 
far  from  the  classical  temper.  It  is  too  self-conscious 
and  forced,  too  evidently  maintained  by  effort  and 
liable  to  collapse  should  the  effort  cease.  It  lacks  the 
classic  calm  and  security,  and  its  very  perturbation 
and  anxiety  to  force  the  pace  are  certain  indications 
of  the  existence  of  a  hostile  presence. 

As  it  happens,  this  presence  also  is  typically  repre- 
sented. In  the  entrance  passage  of  the  Convent  of 
St.  Mark,  at  Florence,  there  hangs  a  portrait  at  which 
all  visitors  turn  to  glance  a  second  time.  The 
strong,  ascetic  features,  the  large  hooked  nose,  the 
deep  furrows  of  the  cheek,  above  all  the  fire,  ardent 
and  fierce,  in  the  black  eyes  that  stare  intently 
upward,  are  traits  evidently  taken  from  the  life. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  face  to  win  or  attract,  yet 
Savonarola  was  a  more  potent  influence  in  Florence 
than  Lorenzo  himself.  Though  his  eloquence  w^as 
almost  entirely  denunciatory,  and  his  descriptions  of 
divine  wrath  and  impending  judgment  frightened 
his  hearers  into  fits,  yet  the  walls  of  his  church,  and 
even  the  squares  of  the  city.  wer«  too  r:^  low  to 
258 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 
contain  the  multitudes  which  gathered  round  him 
to  tremble  and  weep  at  his  words.  The  awful 
reality,  the  awful  proximity,  of  God,  was  the  con- 
stant burden  of  his  eloquence.  In  place  of  paganism, 
in  place  of  intellectualism,  in  place  of  the  humanist 
culture,  which  centred  in  the  Villa  Medici,  he 
upheld  the  idea  of  a  spiritual  guide,  a  spiritual 
ruler,  a  spiritual  judge.  The  effect  of  his  words 
is  a  proof  of  the  ineradicable  survival,  even  in  that 
centre  of  intellectualism,  of  the  spiritual  faculty. 
A  fierce  spiritual  reaction  set  in,  and  the  whole 
city,  swept  by  an  emotional  ecstasy,  surrendered 
itself  to  the  guidance  of  the  instrument  of  God.    * 

There  are  few  more  striking  contrasts  in  history 
probably  than  Lorenzo  and  Savonarola,  and  the 
scene  at  the  former's  death-bed  throws  that  contrast 
into  striking  relief.  Death,  we  may  suppose,  is 
usually  a  test  of  the  sincerity  of  a  man's  opinions, 
and  the  old  Greeks  died  in  their  paganism  as 
calmly  and  sincerely  as  they  had  lived  in  it.  But 
the  paganism  of  the  Renaissance,  though  good 
enough  to  live  in,  was  no  creed  to  die  in,  and  with 
the  consciousness  of  approaching  dissolution  upon 
him  Lorenzo  sent  for  the  Dominican.  The  meeting 
summarises  the  Renaissance.  If  we  would  know 
why  it  is  that  the  classic  note  in  the  Renaissance 
strikes  us  as  strained  and  overdone,  why  it  is  that 
characters  like  Pico  della  Mirandola  have  the  hectic 
flush  on  them,  why  it  is  that  the  imitations  of 
classic  manners,  the  revival  of  the  Garden  and  the 
Academy,  the  Aristotelian  and  Platonic  encounters, 
the  wish  even  to  revive  the  worship  of  the  gods,  and 
all  the  other  signs  of  an  almost  breathless  enthusiasm 

259 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
for  the  usages  of  paganism  have  something  obviously 
extravagant  and  excessive  in  them  and  are  tinged  as 
it  were  with  an  element  of  play-acting,  we  have  but 
to  call  to  mind  the  death-bed  of  the  humanist  with 
the  monk  standing  over  it  to  perceive  the  reason. 
The  Renaissance  was  strained  in  its  paganism 
because  it  was  not  really  pagan.  Fain  though  it 
was  to  persuade  itself  that  it  was  what,  for  the 
moment,  it  wanted  to  be,  yet  with  all  its  eager  pro- 
testations it  never  quite  succeeds.  There  are  present 
in  the  life  of  the  age  elements  which  no  pagan 
system  can  contain.  We  have  chosen  Savonarola 
as  the  representative  of  these  elements  at  the 
moment  of  the  climax  of  the  Renaissance,  but  if  we 
were  to  revert  to  the  eve  of  the  movement  and 
consider  the  still  more  far-reaching  effect  of  the 
more  spiritual  teaching  of  a  St.  Francis,  should  we 
not  be  obliged  to  confess  that  from  the  very  first 
the  pagan  experiment  was  doomed  to  failure  ? 
Indeed,  might  not  a  shrewd  observer  already  at  this 
juncture,  seeing  what  profound  spiritual  instincts 
were  inwoven  in  the  national  character,  have  fore- 
told what  was  bound  to  happen  ?  "  You  have  here," 
he  would  have  said,  "  something  which  no  human 
interpretation  of  life  will  ever  satisfy.  No  philo- 
sophical system,  by  which  you  think  to  control  these 
spiritual  aspirations,  but  will  always  be  liable  to  be 
rent  asunder  by  an  outburst  of  spiritual  emo- 
tionalism." So  much,  without  being  a  prophet,  he 
might  have  surmised ;  and  when,  three  hundred 
years  later,  at  the  veiy  moment  of  the  intellectual 
apogee,  Florence  went  mad  over  Savonarola,  and 
the  nobles  and  ladies  burnt  their  finery  in  the 
260 


Michela  ngelo 
The  broken  ruggedness  of  the  man's  face  ajid  wistful  haggard 
expression  are  the  best  comment  on  his  work 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 

market-place,  and  the  dying  prince  of  this  world 
sent  post-haste  for  the  custodian  of  the  next,  he 
might  have  added,  "  I  told  you  so." 

These,  then,  are  the  two  main  points  of  difference 
between  the  Classic  and  Renaissance  life  :  (i)  The 
latter  never  succeeded  in  installing  an  intellectual 
ethical  system  in  command  of  conduct  and  action  ; 
but  (2)  in  lieu  of  such  a  system  it  was  haunted  by  a 
vague,  spiritually  conceived  faith  in  the  will  of  an 
omnipotent  God.  Also  it  is  the  case  that  this 
contrast  between  Renaissance  and  Classic  life  is  in 
many  ways  identical  with  the  contrast  between 
Renaissance  and  Classic  art.  Renaissance  sculpture 
is,  in  the  first  place,  totally  lacking  in  the  broad 
abstract  principles  which  govern  Greek  sculpture ; 
but,  in  the  second  place,  it  does  reveal  a  spiritual 
aspiration  and  a  consciousness  of  spiritual  vitality 
such  as  we  shall  search  Greek  art  for  in  vain.  It 
seems  almost  superfluous  to  illustrate  these  points, 
but  if  we  are  to  do  so  the  means  lie  ready  to  our  hand. 
Lorenzo  and  Savonarola  embody,  I  said,  the  dual 
aspects  of  the  Renaissance,  its  outward  triumphant 
paganism  and  its  inward  smouldering  spirituality. 
It  remains  for  the  greatest  sculptor  of  the  age  to 
depict  the  two  and  the  conflict  between  them  in 
terms  of  visible  form.  To  name  Michelangelo  in 
this  connection  is  enough.  There  is  no  need  to 
dilate  on  his  appreciation  of  the  intellectualism  of 
the  Renaissance.  We  all  know  what  a  sense  he 
possessed  for  the  concrete,  for  substance,  and  what 
a  passion  for  the  science  of  articulation.  He  had, 
if  ever  a  man  had,  the  temperament  of  the  sculptor. 
But  we  all  know,  too,  what  depths  of  spiritual 

261 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
emotion  underlay  the  mighty  capacity  of  the  man 
and  taxed  and  mocked  its  utmost  efforts  at  definition. 
Both  points  of  difference  I  have  been  dealing  with 
are  brought  out  in  his  work  with  equal  force. 
There  is  a  truth  in  that  old  nickname  the  "  Great 
Barbarian "  ;  for  if  we  admit,  as  we  must  admit, 
that  the  Greek  gift  of  culture  consisted  in  the  ability 
to  realise  ethical  laws  in  the  dominions  of  art  and 
literature,  there  must  needs  appear  something  bar- 
barous in  a  rejection  as  absolute  as  Michelangelo's 
of  any  such  connection.  It  is  not  possible  to  think 
of  the  Classic  principles  of  symmetry,  harmony, 
proportion,  moderation,  in  presence  of  Michel- 
angelo's figures.  They  never  suggest  such  motives, 
save  accidentally,  for  they  were  not  evolved  in 
obedience  to  such  dictates.  What  to  the  Athenian 
was  his  chief  holdfast  on  truth  and  sanity  is  to  the 
Florentine  a  consideration  of  no  interest  whatsoever. 
On  the  other  hand,  was  ever  sculpture  more  racked 
with  spiritual  indefinable  impulses  than  are  these 
tragic  forms  ?  We  are  carried  back  again  to  that 
hour  when  first  the  Classic  intellectualism  broke 
down  and  new  hopes  and  fears  were  struggling  for 
articulation.  In  spirit  Hellenistic  sculpture  is  far 
closer  than  Hellenic  to  the  Renaissance.  It  consists 
of  the  same  elements,  and  the  same  problem,  how  to 
embody  spiritual  ideas  in  terms  of  form,  perplexes 
and  baffles  it.  There  is  a  profound  similarity  in  life 
between  the  two  periods,  which  works  itself  out  into 
a  corresponding  resemblance  in  art.  The  typical 
warrior's  head,  to  which  allusion  has  been  made, 
the  head,  as  Mr.  Gardner  describes  it,  of  the  "  rough 
and  matted  hair,"  of  the  "knotty  and  exaggerated 
262 


While  thinking  like  the  Greeks  in  terms  of  form  Michelangelo  ivas 
haunted  by  emotions  and  confiicis  of  the  soul  ivhich  ivould  ill  go  into 
that  medium 


FROM  THE  MONUMENT  OF  LORENZO.    FLORENCE         (i)  f.  262 


I- 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 

rendering  of  sinews  and  veins,"  of  the  "restless  and 
mobile  brow ''  :  this  head,  so  "vigorous,"  so  "  intense 
in  expression,"  yet  so  lacking  in  the  "  restraint  and 
moderation  "  of  earlier  Greek  work  which,  at  once 
torn  and  inspired  by  strange  hopes  and  fears,  has 
such  a  "  modern  effect,"  and  "  anticipates  in  many 
ways  the  Christian  art  of  a  later  date " — this  head 
might  have  come  straight  from  the  workshop  of 
Michelangelo,  and  had  it  done  so  would  pass  muster 
as  an  entirely  characteristic  example  of  his  art.  So 
strangely  similar  upon  art  are  the  effects  of  similar 
thought-currents  in  life. 

In  dealing  with  classic  sculpture  I  ventured  to 
suggest  that  the  study  of  art  would  derive  consider- 
able additional  interest  if  it  were  more  often  studied 
in  conjunction  with,  and  as  an  expression  of,  the 
life  of  its  own  age  and  place.  That  suggestion  I 
would  here  reiterate.  It  is  probable  that  the  ideas 
we  have  been  discussing  may  have  occurred  to  many 
of  my  readers  before  :  they  are  such  at  least  as  might 
readily  occur  to  any  one  interested  in  these  sub- 
jects. Nevertheless  they  can  scarcely  be  too  much 
pondered  and  dwelt  upon.  The  added  significance 
they  are  able  to  pour  into  the  art  they  deal  with  is 
incalculable.  A  great  genius,  poet  or  artist,  is  the 
medium  through  which  an  age  speaks.  The  figures 
of  Michelangelo  incarnate  the  very  genius  of  the 
Renaissance.  There,  in  the  anatomy,  the  fore- 
shortening, the  elaboration  of  flesh  and  sinew,  is  the 
play  of  intellect  and  love  of  science  we  know  so 
well ;  and  there,  in  furrowed  brow  and  mobile  lip, 
is  the  spiritual  anxiety  and  restlessness  which  also, 
though  we  oflen  ignore  it,  is  blent  inextricably  with 

263 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

the  spirit  of  the  age.  In  a  work  entitled  "  A  Hundred 
Masterpieces  of  Sculpture/'  which  I  commend  to 
the  reader's  notice  as  one  of  the  best  sketches  of  the 
history  of  sculpture  recently  written,  there  occurs  a 
passage  on  Michelangelo  from  an  unnamed  source, 
in  which  this  clash  and  jar  of  motives  is  expressed 
with  entire  comprehension : 

"  Dans  les  marbres  froids  ou  bout  son  ame  altiere, 
Comme  il  a  fait  courir  avec  un  grand  frisson 
La  colere  d'un  Dieu  vaincu  par  la  matiere." 

We  are  not  to  think  of  these  great  creations  as  works 
of  individual  genius  only,  but  as  nourished  and  in- 
spired by  tides  of  contemporary  thought  and  emotion. 
Their  agitation  is  the  agitation  of  a  century.  Not 
only  do  the  science  and  intellectualism  of  that  age,  its 
love  of  analysing  and  defining,  its  keen  appreciation 
of  the  significance  of  matter,  receive  at  the  hands 
of  the  great  Florentine  their  complete  embodiment ; 
just  as  truly  and  significantly  representative  is  the 
spiritual  anxiety  and  perturbation  of  his  art.  These 
are  the  very  traits  acting  upon  life.  The  cowled 
figure  hanging  over  the  Magnificent's  death-bed  is 
an  element,  in  its  fleshly  form,  of  the  [art  we  are 
gazing  at,  and  as  for  the  denunciations  of  a  material- 
istic age  which  ring  from  the  pulpit  of  St.  Mark's, 
what  are  they  but  the  audible  utterances  of  that  very 
'*  colere  d'un  Dieu  vaincu  par  la  matiere  "  to  which 
the  marble  gives  mute  expression  ? 
*■  Only,  perhaps,  if  we  would  view  the  matter  in  its 
right  aspect, we  may  question  the  word  "vanquished." 
The  struggle  between  matter  and  spirit,  not  the  defeat 
of  spirit  by  matter,  seems  the  message  of  the  har- 
264 


Always  in  his  works,  together  ivith  the  plastic  sense,  is  the  sense  of  i-estless 
struggle,  and  spiritual  perturbation 

FIGURE  IN  ROOF  OF  SISTINE  CHAPEL  (i)  p.  264 


The  same  co7nbmation^  the  feeling  for  form   almost  swamped  in  spiritual 
panic  and  the  dark  impending  chiaroscuro 


ADAM  AND  EVE.     SISTINE  CHAPEL 


(II)  /.  264 


SCULPTURE  AND  THE  MODERN  MIND 

assed  but  unconquerable  marble,  as  it  is  the  message 
of  the  harassed  but  unconquerable  monk.  Gone  is 
the  old  sufficing  ethical  code,  the  old  clear-sightedness 
and  calm,  the  old  agreement  between  philosophy  and 
art.  We  are  embarked  upon  the  troubled  tide  of 
modern  thought,  and  the  still  unanswered  riddle, 
how  to  reconcile  spirit  and  matter,  infinite  ideas 
with  finite  expression  ;  in  a  word,  how  to  combine 
the  thought  of  the  East  and  of  the  West,  has  already 
presented  itself  for  solution. 


2^5 


CHAPTER  X 

PAINTING  AND  THE  INTELLECTUAL 
MOVEMENT 

Manual  dexterity  of  modern  art  :  Consequent  superabundance 
and  confusion  of  subject-matter  :  Contrast  with  earlier 
creative  epochs  :  These  were  protected  from  redundancy  by 
their  own  ignorance  :  They  had  not  our  fatal  executive 
facility  :  Course  of  Italian  painting  from  Giotto  to  Raphael  : 
Development  of  painting  keeps  pace  with  intellectual  de- 
velopment :  The  new  precision  and  accuracy  of  intellectual 
vision  :  Seeing  with  the  mind  :  Need  of  this  in  order  to  reaUse 
and  represent  naturally  :  By  what  degrees  the  eyes  of  men 
during  the  Renaissance  were  opened  :  Man  himself  the  centre 
of  the  movement  :  Renaissance  art  reahses  first  man,  then 
man's  handiwork,  and  finally  nature  :  It  keeps  pace  in  its 
progress  with  the  intellectual  advance  of  the  age 

IT  is  the  peculiarity  of  modern  art  that  to  an  entire 
doubt  as  to  its  own  aims  and  principles  it  unites 
an  extraordinarily  highly  developed  gift  of  manual 
dexterity  and  great  technical  knowledge.  It  can 
paint  or  carve  anything  it  likes  exactly  in  the  manner 
it  likes ;  at  the  same  time  it  does  not  know  in  the 
least  what  to  paint  or  carve,  or  with  what  purpose 
to  paint  or  carve  it.  This  combination  of  a  practised 
and  fluent  hand  with  a  vaguely  groping  and  dis- 
tracted mind  is  comparatively  new  in  the  history  of 
art.  Its  consequences  have  only  been  realised  since 
the  successful  pre-Raphaelite  revolt  against  authority 
and  law  let  loose  upon  us  the  whole  flood  of  a 
hitherto  controlled  and  organised  dexterity.  At  the 
266 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  MOVEMENT 

same  time  the  conjunction  is  a  natural  one,  for  the 
very  possession  of  unlimited  powers  of  execution 
is  bound  to  render  the  task  of  evolving  a  sound 
and  authoritative  theory  of  art  in  some  ways  more 
difficult.  In  the  rise  of  an  art,  when  its  attempts  to 
express  life  are  attended  by  a  very  slowly  yielding 
ignorance  of  how  to  express  anything  at  all,  and  by 
a  total  lack  of  fluency  and  facility  in  execution,  this 
very  ignorance  and  lack  of  fluency  are  a  safeguard 
to  it.  They  keep  it  in  the  right  way  because  they 
insure  that  all  subjects  and  objects  delineated  shall  be 
such  as  possess  unusual  importance  and  significance, 
such  as  strike  the  artist's  attention  with  peculiar 
and  reiterated  force,  and  which  it  is  worth  making  a 
determined  effort  to  portray.  In  this  way  a  slowly 
moving  and  laborious  art  is  driven  by  its  own  short- 
comings to  practise  methods  of  selection.  It  is 
saved  from  the  accidental  and  the  trivial,  from 
distracting  detail  and  meaningless  superfluity,  not 
because  it  knows  better  than  to  yield  to  their  solici- 
tations, but  because  it  does  not  possess  the  skill  to 
depict  such  things.  It  goes  right  because  it  cannot 
go  wrong.  Throughout  the  earlier  stages  at  least  of 
the  Greek  epoch,  as  throughout  the  Renaissance,  it 
is  very  apparent  that  art  is  steadied  and  kept  to  a 
certain  path  because  this  is  its  easiest  course.  It 
does  not  wander,  it  does  not  indulge  in  those 
individual  eccentricities  and  whims  which  efi^ectually 
disperse  the  force  of  a  creative  movement,  simply 
because  it  cannot.  The  hand  has  not  acquired 
the  facility  ofj?"  execution  which  will  permit  of  the 
representation  of  such  slight  themes. 

If  the  reader  will  glance  at  the  course  of  Italian 

267 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

painting  from  Giotto  to  Raphael,  he  will  easily 
perceive  how  the  most  fruitful  and  powerful  tradition 
in  Christian  art  was  shepherded  for  generations  by 
the  ignorance  and  lack  of  dexterity  of  its  practitioners. 
The  development  of  painting  in  Italy  keeps  pace  with 
the  development  of  the  intellectual  faculty.  It  has 
its  rise  in  the  first  movement  of  intellect ;  and  as 
intellect  moves  on  step  by  step,  widening  the  range 
of  its  observation  and  interest,  so  painting  moves 
hand  in  hand  with  it,  recording  its  conquests,  and 
in  its  own  artistic  progress  registering  [the  intellec- 
tual progress  of  the  age.  The  limitations  in  early 
Renaissance  painting  are  limitations  in  intellectual 
development.  They  stand  for  the"^  as  yet  dark 
places  of  the  mind,  and  chronicle  the  steps  of  a 
transition  from  a  state  of  intellectual  indifference  to 
a  state  of  complete  intellectual  sensibility. 

This  mental  transition  and  the  degrees  by  which 
it  is  accomplished  are  the  governing  factors  in 
Renaissance  art.  A'"  great  intellectual  awakening," 
as  we  call  the  Renaissance,  implies  an  aroused  con- 
sciousness of  the  character,  form  and  substance  of 
things.  It  substitutes  for  the  vague  acceptance  of 
appearances  common  to  the  pre-intellectual  age,  an 
active  examination  of  structure  and  contents,  and 
for  indefinite  emotions  definite  ideas.  "  Moving 
about  in  worlds  not  realised,"  may  express  the 
mental  attitude  of  a  pre-intellectual  age ;  to  realise 
the  world  is  the  task  of  intellect. 

And  in  the  carrying  out  of  this  task  mind  and 
eye  work  together  and  constantly  act  and  re-act 
upon  each  other.  He  who  looks  at  things  with  the 
eye  of  intellect  sees  them  with  a  new  precision  and 
268 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  MOVEMENT 
accuracy.  He  is  driven  by  the  intellect  itself  so  to 
see  them.  Intent  on  probing  into  the  nature  of 
things,  on  divining  their  purpose  and  composition, 
and  whence  they  came  and  whither  they  are  going, 
and  a  thousand  other  facts  about  them,  the  intellect 
must  needs  in  all  these  matters  employ  the  eye  to 
collect  data  for  it,  and  this  in  turn  results  in  a  new 
discernment  and  discriminative  power  imparted  to 
the  sense  of  sight.  So  that  the  desire  of  the  mind 
to  distinguish  accurately  and  define  exactly  grow 
by  degrees  into  unconscious  properties  of  vision, 
and  seeing  with  the  mind,  as  it  may  be  called, 
becomes  seeing  in  a  new  and  more  positive  sense 
of  the  word. 

One  main  effect  then  of  that  great  intellectual 
awakening  which  we  date  from  the  Renaissance 
was  that  it  taught  men  to  see  in  the  intellectual 
way,  with  a  new  exactitude  and  discrimination  and 
with  a  suddenly  enhanced  comprehension  of  the 
reality  of  what  they  looked  at.  But  we  are  not  to 
suppose  that  the  intellectual  awakening  itself  came 
all  at  once.  Men  did  not  get  up  one  fine  morning 
and  gaze  about  them  with  a  full-fledged  curiosity 
which  embraced  equally  all  objects  in  view.  No, 
the  awakening  came  gradually,  and  step  by  step. 
It  challenged  the  most  obviously  interesting  and 
important  things  first,  and  by  degrees  extended  its 
survey  to  others  more  remote.  Now  the  most 
obviously  interesting  and  important  thing  to  mankind 
is  man.  Accordingly  it  is  upon  man  that  dawning 
intellectual  curiosity  first  concentrates  its  attention. 
Man's  aspect  and  appearance,  the  motives  of  his 
conduct,  the  causes  of  his  happiness  or  unhappi- 

269 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
ness,  his  past  history  and  future  fate,  the  evil  or 
beneficent  influences  that  attend  upon  him,  these 
are  the  questions  which  the  conscious  attention 
that  springs  from  intellect  first  proceeds  to  examine. 
Love  of  human  intercourse  and  delight  in  human 
society  are  the  most  attractive  characteristics  of 
what,  for  this  reason,  has  been  well  called  the 
Humanist  movement.  As  a  matter  of  mental  cul- 
ture and  thought,  this  centrality  of  man  gave  a 
definite  point  of  view  to  the  intellectualism  of  the 
Renaissance.  The  importance  and  significance  of 
all  objects  were  calculated  in  terms  of  human 
relationship.  Those  things  which  partook  inti- 
mately of  the  human  lot  were  more  important ;  those 
which  remotely  affected  it  were  less  important  j 
while  those  which  were  so  far  removed  as  to  be 
apparently  cut  off  from  it  altogether  were  devoid 
of  any  importance  or  significance  whatever. 

This  is  the  course  of  development  followed  by 
the  Renaissance  intellectually,  and  the  intellectual 
expansion,  with  its  gradual  conquests  and  ordered 
motion,  is  what  determines  the  course  of  Renais- 
sance painting : 

The  awakening  of  intellect,  as  was  pointed  out, 
came  by  degrees;  therefore,  since  the  power  to 
draw  rightly  depends  on  intellect,  that,  too,  must 
come  by  degrees.  The  awakening  intellect  ex- 
tended itself  in  successive,  more  or  less  definable, 
radiations  from  man,  its  source  and  centre,  to  man's 
handiwork,  from  man's  handiwork  to  familiar  and 
domesticated  nature,  and  finally  to  more  remote 
and  wilder  nature.  The  power  to  draw  rightly 
must  follow  the  same  lines  of  development 
270 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  MOVEMENT 
It  should  be  easy  to  show,  in  brief  outline,  that 
it  did  so.  So  long  as  the  Byzantine  tradition  lasts, 
nothing,  not  even  the  figures,  is  realised  intellectually. 
The  attitudes,  stiff  and  angular,  are  not  real  attitudes. 
The  long  cadaverous  faces  are  not  real  faces.  The 
reiteration  of  the  same  sterotyped  features  allies 
such  treatment  with  the  Oriental  in  all  ages.  In- 
tellect has  not  got  hold  of  the  subject-matter  of 
these  drawings.  It  is  before  the  awakening.  Ere 
the  thirteenth  century  is  out,  however,  there  are 
signs  of  the  approaching  change.  These  first  occur 
in  the  figures,  which  begin  to  break  their  fiat,  hiero- 
glyphical  postures  and  come  to  life.  They  soon 
appear  in  various  attitudes  instead  of  always  in  the 
same  attitude,  they  are  of  various  types  instead  of 
always  the  same  type,  and  the  faces  express  various 
intelligible  human  emotions  instead  of  no  emotions 
at  all.  They  move  and  act,  stiffly  it  is  true,  and 
within  a  very  limited  range  of  movement ;  still  the 
consciousness  of  their  real  nature  begins  to  stir  in 
them.  It  is,  I  cannot  help  remarking,  for  one  who 
looks  upon  art  as  the  expression  of  life,  one  of  the 
most  touching  and  pathetic  moments  in  the  whole 
of  her  history.  Of  all  discoveries  none  ever  brought 
in  such  immediate,  rich  results  as  the  discovery  of 
man  by  man.  The  interest  of  man,  of  the  motives, 
emotions  and  ideas  that  stir  his  mind,  that  change 
and  are  to  be  traced  in  the  expression  of  his  face, 
that  prompt  the  appropriate  postures  of  his  body 
and  gestures  of  his  limbs;  all  this,  the  intimate, 
intellectual  recognition  of  all  this,  as  compared 
with  the  unconscious  acceptance  of  it,  is  the  new 
stimulus  which  the  mind  of  the  age  is  applying  to 

271 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

the  eye.  It  is  a  time  of  extraordinarily  keen  delight 
in  human  fellowship  and  intercourse,  a  time  when 
the  pleasures  of  society  begin  to  be  lirst  consciously 
felt  and  then  to  be  cultivated  and  enhanced.  A  new 
ideal  of  life  and  manners,  a  new  comprehension 
and  power  of  sympathy,  a  new  gentleness  and 
urbanity  are  coming  into  being.  We  conceive  the 
youth  of  the  Renaissance  gazing  at  each  other  with 
eyes  in  which  delight  and  a  dawning  recognition 
are  dispelling  the  old  insensibility.  Such  was  the 
gaze  by  which  the  Oriental  emaciations  of  Byzantine 
art  were  roused  to  life.  "  Those  are  not  real  cheeks  : 
real  cheeks  are  round  and  ruddy.  Those  are  not 
real  eyes,  nor  that  a  real  body,  nor  are  those  limbs 
and  hands  and  feet  real."  Thus  the  artist  felt ; 
but  before  he,  as  spokesman  of  his  age,  felt  it, 
what  a  new  power  of  observation  must  have  come 
into  men's  eyes,  and  with  how  hitherto  unfelt  a 
desire  to  appreciate  the  significance  and  beauty  of 
faces  and  forms  and  expression  and  gestures  must 
men  and  women  in  those  days  have  begun  to  gaze 
at  each  other  I 

This  is  the  first  step.  Man  lives  for  man  in  real 
life,  and  forthwith  man  begins  to  live  for  the  artist 
on  his  canvas.  But  not  much  else  lives.  For  the 
most  part  the  flat  gold  background,  blotting  out  all 
save  the  figures,  still  meets  the  claims  of  the  universe 
with  a  blank  negation.  Soon,  however,  interest 
spreads.  The  works  of  men's  hands  form,  as  we 
said,  the  next  sphere  it  is  to  conquer,  and  of  such 
works  that  which  far  eclipsed  all  others  in  the 
estimation  of  citizens  so  proud  of  the  civic  dignity 
and  grandeur  of  their  several  cities  as  the  Italians, 
272 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  MOVEMENT 
was  necessarily  architecture.  From  the  earliest 
days  of  the  Renaissance,  architecture,  as  must  be 
the  case  in  all  great  epochs  of  art,  was  the  pursuit 
and  industry  which  most  engaged  attention,  and 
the  new  spirit  that  henceforth  began  to  animate  this 
art  is  peculiarly  characteristic  of  the  change  of 
mental  attitude  of  the  age. 

Accordingly  this  is  the  subject  in  which,  after  the 
figures,  painting  makes  most  decisive  and  earliest 
progress.  Before  the  thirteenth  century  is  out 
architectural  accessories  are  introduced  as  a  setting 
to  the  awakening  figures.  They  are  invariably  exe- 
cuted with  a  new  care  and  closeness  of  attention, 
the  mouldings  and  details  being  drawn  with  fas- 
tidious precision,  while  the  character  of  the  structure 
is  fully  realised  and  rendered.  It  is,  indeed,  often 
over-realised,  and  with  too  complete  a  conscious- 
ness of  the  function  and  formation  of  columns, 
architraves,  and  cornices  ;  the  consequence  being 
that  buildings,  in  Renaissance  painting  generally, 
are  apt  to  assert  themselves  too  vigorously,  and 
with  something  of  the  harsh  exactitude  of  an  archi- 
tect's plans.  So  enamoured  is  the  artist  of  the 
intellectual  interest  of  his  subject  that  he  cannot 
deny  himself  the  pleasure  of  articulating  every 
detail  of  it.  More,  he  cannot  help  introducing  it 
even  amongst  the  most  incongruous  surroundings. 
Stately  pleasure  domes  or  classic  temples  must  start 
up  in  the  wilderness,  or  be  perched  on  inaccessible 
crags  :  and  the  crib  at  Bethlehem  must  be  sheltered 
by  a  Corinthian  pediment. 

And  what  renders  the  strength  and  realism  of  the 
architectural  drawing  the  more  remarkable  is  that 

s  27j 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

the  scenes  amid  which  it  commonly  occurs  are,  as 
regards  their  natural  features,  rendered,  at  first  with 
an  entire,  and  later  with  a  partial  lack  of  compre- 
hension. The  eye  turns  from  some  difficult,  elabo- 
rate structure,  a  triumph  of  realistic  painting,  to  a 
river  indicated  by  parallel  white  lines  with  fish  cruis- 
ing about  on  the  surface,  or  to  a  foreground  of  a 
dull,  whitish  grey,  in  texture  neither  soil  nor  rock, 
but  of  the  nature,  apparently,  of  pipe-clay,  or  to 
certain  shapeless  peaks  in  the  background,  of  the 
same  white  clay  as  the  foreground,  with  two  or 
three  trees,  in  make  and  shape  like  enormous  black 
toad-stools,  poised  on  their  summits.  It  would  not 
be  possible  to  have  marked  for  us  more  clearly  the 
limits  to  which  intellectual  reahsm  had  reached. 
On  the  one^  side  of  those  limits  all  is  reality  and 
accuracy,  on  the  other  all  is  dull  [^insensibility  and 
images  without  character  or  life.  The  awakening 
intellect  has  realised  figures  and  has  realised  build- 
ings, but  rivers  and  rocks,  the  common  earth  and 
mountain  peaks,  it  has  not  realised  at  all.  In  the 
representation  of  these  features  certain  formulas  are 
reiterated  and  acquiesced  in  with  almost  the  apathy 
of  the  old  Byzantine  days.  The  stratification  of 
rock,  the  outcrops  of  ledges,  the  ripples  on  water, 
the  shapes  of  clouds  and  many  other  natural  objects 
are  indicated  by  conventions  which  are  repeated 
quite  in  the  Oriental  spirit  for  a  century.  Progress 
in  these  regions  remote  from  humanity  was  slow. 
Even  Leonardo  never  came  to  perceive  that  the 
savage  rocks  possessed  a  character  of  their  own 
and  structural  laws  of  their  own,  which  made  them 
worthy  of  being  painted  with  all  possible  care  and 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  MOVEMENT 
thoughtfulness.    He  had  never  looked  at  rocks  with 
the  eye  of  intellect,  and  he  painted  them  accordingly 
as  if  they  had  been  made  of  cheese. 

But  if  progress,  in  dealing  with  scenes  of  wild 
nature,  is  slow,  it  is  much  more  rapid  in  the  render- 
ing of  domesticated  or  tame  nature.  The  coloured 
flower-heads  that  peeped  from  the  grass  at  men's 
feet,  the  trees,  symmetrical  and  cultured,  which 
grew  around  their  villas,  or  tempted  them  by  their 
promise  of  cool  shade  to  ascend  the  gentle  eminence 
on  which  they  stood,  these  were  the  artists'  first 
natural  subjects ;  and  it  is  with  these  as  with  the 
architecture — no  sooner  is  attention  once  turned 
upon  them  than  they  are  rendered  with  a  perfect 
articulation  of  leaf  and  petal  which  testifies  to  the 
new  comprehension  which  has  suddenly  seized  upon 
them.  But  still  the  limit  of  intellectual  realisation, 
the  point  it  has  attained  to  but  beyond  which  it 
cannot  yet  penetrate,  though  pushed  back  a  step, 
remains  clearly  marked  ;  for  while  the  surrounding 
shrubs  and  flowers  are  wrought  with  a  perfect  deli- 
cacy of  discrimination,  the  hills  and  earth  are  pipe- 
clay still,  and  the  rocks  mere  shapeless  dumplings. 
The  old  suddenness  of  transition  from  knowledge 
to  ignorance  remains.  As  a  man  standing  in  the 
heart  of  a  mist  sees  the  vapour  lift  and  recoil, 
uncovering  by  degrees  the  nearer  objects  while  still 
obstructing  the  remote,  so  is  it  with  the  intellectual 
range,  and  so  with  the  artistic  capacity  of  the  Renais- 
sance. Man ;  man  plus  architecture  and  clothes ; 
man  plus  architecture  and  clothes,  plus  a  few  flowers 
and  trees ;  man  plus  architecture  and  clothes,  plus 
a  few  flowers  and  trees,  plus  an  enlarging  area 

27s 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

gradually  extending  to  things  remote,  but  never 
quite  mastering  the  absolutely  wild — these  are  the 
degrees  of  enlightenment.  From  man  as  the  centre 
of  all  interest  intellectual  realisation  proceeds,  and 
as  it  proceeds,  working  outwards,  first  one  set  of 
objects  and  then  another  is  comprehended,  ren- 
dered definable,  and  so  brought  within  the  grasp  of 
the  artist. 

Thus  most  Renaissance  pictures— all  of  them 
which  comprise  a  sufficiently  wide  range  of  subject- 
matter — are  to  some  extent  shared  between  know- 
ledge and  ignorance.  How  far  knowledge  has  got, 
to  what  extent  it  has  penetrated  the  whole  picture, 
will,  of  course,  depend  chiefly  on  the  period  at 
which  the  work  was  painted ;  but  until  the  move- 
ment comes  to  an  end  and  art  begins  to  decline 
into  anarchy,  there  remain  always  moods  of  nature 
not  realised,  not  paintable  ;  and  so  in  every  work  of 
adequate  range  the  limit  of  intellectual  realisation 
will  be  distinctly  apparent.  Once  let  this  idea  be 
entertained  and  the  reader  will  find,  as  he  walks 
through  the  rooms  of  the  National  Gallery,  that  his 
eye  will  easily  learn  to  distinguish  the  intellectual 
range  of  most  of  the  works.  For  example,  in  **  The 
Nativity,*  by  Luca  Signorelli,  the  figures,  attitudes, 
faces,  expressions,  movements,  are  all  free  and 
expressive ;  the  little  flowers  and  herbs  and  grasses 
in  the  foreground  are  exquisitely  realised  and 
reproduced ;  the  temple  in  the  middle  distance  is 
drawn  with  the  most  determined  correctness,  as 
also  are  the  battlements  and  towers  of  the  town  on 
the  hill ;  but  the  crags  and  rocky  declivities  which 
form  the  greater  part  of  the  composition  are  not  in 
276 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  MOVEMENT 

the  least  like  natural  stones  and  cliffs,  but  are  merely 
the  perpetuation  of  certain  dull  formulas  accepted  as 
signifying  the  real  things  by  artists  whose  comprehen- 
sion had  never  grasped  their  actual  appearances. 
A  still  more  conspicuous  example  of  the  same  limita- 
tion is  Mantegna's  **  Agony  in  the  Garden"  in  which 
the  figures,  near  and  distant,  are  drawn  with  easy 
mastery ;  in  which,  too,  the  white  Jerusalem  walls 
and  towers,  and  all  the  delicate  architecture  of  the 
city,  are  elaborated  with  exquisite  accuracy,  yet  in 
which  the  wild  peaks  and  rocky  landscape  are 
executed  with  a  complete  and  childlike  uncon- 
sciousness of  their  real  character. 

Nor  can  it  be  maintained  in  explanation  of  such 
limitations  that  the  capacity  of  Renaissance  art 
progressed  from  the  more  easy  to  the  more  difficult. 
On  the  contrary  the  reverse  is  rather  the  case.  The 
success  achieved  is  in  inverse  proportion  to  the  ease 
in  achieving  it.  Of  all  subjects  the  human  form, 
with  its  infinite  variety  of  gesture  and  expression 
dependent  on  minute  inflections  in  drawing,  is  the 
most  difficult  to  master  ;  after  figures,  architecture, 
with  its  complex  perspective  and  the  demand  it 
makes  on  exactitude  of  line,  is  the  next  most 
difficult,  while  when  we  come  to  nature,  the  trees 
and  flowers  of  the  foreground  are  certainly  much 
harder  to  render  than  the  remoter  features  of  the 
landscape.  Any  student  of  water-colour  painting 
at  the  present  day  could  draw  a  wild  landscape  with 
a  truth  which  no  painter  of  the  Renaissance  could 
have  rivalled ;  and  it  would  be  only  as  he  approached 
the  more  difficult  features  in  composition  that  he 
would  find  Renaissance  art  forging  ahead  of  him. 

277 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

The  cause  of  success  or  failure,  in  the  case  of 
Renaissance  art,  does  not  therefore  lie  in  ease  or 
difficulty  of  execution.  It  is  to  be  found  rather  in 
the  fact  that  as  we  make  the  transition  from  wild 
nature  to  tame,  from  tame  nature  to  man's  handi- 
work, and  from  man's  handiwork  to  man,  we  are 
moving  from  the  outskirts  of  a  circle  of  knowledge 
towards  the  centre  of  it,  which  is  man  himself ;  and 
consequently,  with  every  step  we  take,  the  appeal  to 
human  interest  increases  in  power  and  intensity. 
This  human  interest  it  is,  this  power,  as  I  have 
called  it,  of  intellectually  realising  the  object 
looked  at,  which  is  the  clue  to  the  progress  made. 
Let  intellect  catch  hold,  let  it  inform  the  eye  with  its 
desire  for  penetrating,  measuring,  defining,  and 
whether  the  thing  looked  at  be  difficult  or  easy  to 
draw,  the  artist  will  soon  learn  to  draw  it.  Let 
intellect  fail  to  catch  hold,  fail  to  direct  the  eye,  and 
though  the  object  be  comparatively  easy  to  represent, 
he  will  find  himself  helpless  before  it. 

If  once  we  conceive  artistic  activity  as  based  on 
intellectual,  we  have  at  once  a  visible  register  to  the 
whole  intellectual  development  of  the  Renaissance. 
We  have,  for  example,  the  dominating  position  of 
Florence  defined  with  a  new  clearness.  In  the  case 
of  several  schools  of  art,  analysed  by  Mr.  Berenson 
in  his  "  Northern  Painters,"  it  is  apparent  that 
the  Florentine  influence  is  always  the  fruitful  and 
progressive  one,  and  that  motives  derived  from 
other  sources  always  tend  to  sterility.  This  will 
seem  natural  enough  if  we  recognise  that  artistic 
progress  was  made  possible  by  intellectual  progress, 
for  there  is  no  question  for  a  moment  of  Florence's 
278 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  MOVEMENT 

intellectual  supremacy.  What  the  Renaissance,  as  a 
whole,  did  for  art  was  to  turn  it  into  a  vehicle  for 
the  expression  of  intellectualised  life,  and  it  was 
because  Florence  led  the  way  in  matters  of  intellect 
that  she  led  the  way  in  matters  of  art.  Side  by  side 
at  the  rise  of  the  new  epoch  stand  the  two  great 
Florentine  figures  of  Dante  and  Giotto,  like  a  pair 
of  mountain  springs,  from  which  the  twin  rivers  of 
literature  and  art  flow  down  to  the  valleys  and  the 
plain  ;  dealing,  both  of  them,  with  the  more  momen- 
tous issues  of  man's  fate,  and  dealing  with  them 
with  that  new,  unmistakable  and  terrible  force  of 
intellectual  realisation  of  which  they  were  the  first 
appointed  instruments.  Down  from  Dante  stretches 
a  line  of  poets  and  prose  writers  whose  study  is  still 
man,  but  who  develop  by  degrees  a  more  and  more 
familiar  and  mundane  intimacy  with  their  subject ; 
while  down  from  Giotto  stretch  the  Renaissance 
painters,  pursuing  a  like  course,  and  handling  by 
degrees  more  familiarly  all  the  circumstances  of 
human  life.  The  literary  impulse  thus  given  is  to 
end  in  the  minute  realisation  of  the  modern  novel. 
The  artistic  impulse  thus  given  is  to  end  in  the 
correspondingly  minute  realisation  of  modern 
painting.  But  the  two,  at  every  stage  of  their 
development,  are  allied,  for  they  both  alike  result 
from  the  intellect's  widening  survey  or  closer 
scrutiny. 

But  although,  this  being  the  case,  we  might,  as 
Indeed  we  generally  do,  approach  the  Renaissance 
from  the  literary  point  of  view,  and  perhaps  from 
several  other  points  of  view  besides,  yet  I  cannot 
help  doubting  whether  any  of  these  methods  of 

279 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
study,  or  all  combined,  would  give  us  the  same  vivid 
perception  of  the  course  followed  by  the  movement 
as  is  to  be  gained  from  painting.  Does  one  reader 
in  fifty  realise  the  meaning  of  that  dull  phrase  of 
ours,  "the  awakening  of  the  intellect,"  which  we 
have  repeated  till  it  has  become  a  mere  formula  ? 
Does  one  reader  in  fifty  realise  it  as  an  active  process, 
with  tangible  results  and  methods,  and  a  regular 
scheme  of  development  of  its  own  ?  I  venture  to 
doubt  if  any  historical,  political,  or  literary  study  of 
the  subject  could  endow  it  with  such  a  living 
interest.  But  consider  it  in  relation  to  the  view  of 
painting  that  has  been  suggested.  Watch  the 
operation  of  the  new  faculty  touching  into  life,  like 
a  magic  wand,  the  figures  and  countenances  of  men 
and  women ;  thence  moving  on  to  things  most 
soaked  with  human  interest,  and  so  by  degrees  to 
others  more  removed.  Watch  the  mental  activity 
thus  rendered  visible,  creeping  and  spreading  from 
stage  to  'stage,  giving  realism  to  each  thing  as  it 
reaches  and  grasps  it.  Does  not  such  a  manifestation 
of  its  activity,  thus  laid  on  the  canvas  before  our 
eyes,  quicken  our  old  phrase  with  a  new  meaning 
and  enable  us  to  realise  the  intellectual  awakening  as 
a  vital  process  ? 

We  may  also,  I  think,  arrive  at  something  of 
interest  if  we  go  on  to  consider  our  own  case  and 
the  depth  of  the  difference  between  Renaissance  art 
and  ours.  The  old  limitations  no  longer  in  these 
days  exist.  So  completely  has  the  modern  mind 
become  intellectualised,  and  so  completely  has  it 
intellectualised  the  eye,  that  the  modern  artist  can 
paint  anything.  Not  wild  nature  only,  throwing  it 
280 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  MOVEMENT 

all;  just  as  it  is,  upon  the  canvas,  and  not  all  the 
daily  incidents  and  moments  of  human  life  only, 
fugitive  glimpses  seen  one  minute  and  gone  the 
next,  yet  caught  with  the  extraordinarily  swift 
intellectual  perception  of  modern  sight — not  these 
things  only  can  the  artist  of  to-day  paint,  but 
atmospheric  effects  of  shadows,  and  reflections,  and 
mists  ;  of  sunbeams  in  the  air  and  upon  the  leaves 
and  grass— effects  so  aerial  and  evanescent  that  they 
seem  scarcely  palpable  to  sight  itself.  The  change 
would  seem  all  in  favour  of  ourselves.  Instead  of 
being  able  to  deal  only  with  a  very  limited  range  of 
subjects,  modern  art  can  deal  with,  can  realise,  the 
universe.  Its  sphere  of  interest  and  its  sphere  of 
capacity  are  alike  indefinitely  enlarged,  and  in  this 
sense  the  task  which  Renaissance  art  set  out  to 
accomplish,  the  task  of  converting'painting  into  an 
adequate  vehicle  for  the  expression  of  intellectualised 
life,  may  be  said  to  have  been  achieved.  But  there 
is  something  to  set  against  this.  -  Our  facility  in 
representation,  our  miscellaneous  and  universal 
range  of  interest,  threaten  us  with  pitfalls  from  which 
Renaissance  art  was  exempt.  The  man  who  can 
draw  but  little,  and  that  little  all  from  the  same  point 
of  view,  cannot  widely  err.  The  man  who  can  draw 
anything  from  any  point  of  view  is  liable  to  infinite 
error.  There  might  be  no  great  occasion  to  preach 
the  need  of  selection  and  the  evils  of  redundancy  to 
an  artist  who  could  paint  anly  a  bunch  of  cyclamen, 
a  praying  saint,  and  an  acacia-tree,  but  how  widely 
different  does  the  case  become  when  we  have  to  do 
with  artists  who  can  paint  rocks  and  dew,  and  the 
tangle  of  woods  and  street  crowds,  and  'buses  and 

28l 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

hansomS;  and  all  the  motley  panorama  and  topsy- 
turveydom  of  natural  and  human  life  all  over  the 
world. 

This  is  the  difference  that  puts  modern  criticism 
on  a  new  footing.  Instinctively  we  look  to  the 
Renaissance,  the  great  creative  epoch  in  painting  of 
Christian  times,  for  instruction  and  guidance  in  the 
art.  We  do  so  because  we  feel  that  the  coherence, 
significance  and  simplicity  of  that  art  are  the 
essential  qualifications  for  all  effective  art,  that  all 
art  is  effective  only  in  so  far  as  it  possesses  these 
qualities,  and  that  our  own  art  must  somehow  or 
other  attain  to  them  if  it  is  ever  to  express  anything 
at  all  with  clearness  and  power.  Doubtless  we  are 
right.  The  qualities  of  Renaissance  art  are  the 
qualities  of  great  art  in  all  ages,  and  we  cannot  too 
clearly  recognise  it.  But  also  we  cannot  too  clearly 
understand  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  attain  to 
these  qualities  by  the  road  by  which  the  Italians 
attained  to  them.  We  have  lost  the  old  human 
centralisation  and  the  strict  limitations  in  executive 
range  of  Renaissance  art  which  were  such  safe- 
guards, which  forced  coherence,  significance  and 
simplicity  on  their  generation,  so  that  that  generation 
could  do  without  a  thoughtful  and  sound  critical 
theory  of  art.  Those  safeguards  and  restraints  have 
vanished.  Nothing  any  longer  forces  coherence, 
significance  and  simplicity  upon  us,  and  therefore 
we  cannot  do  without  a  thoughtful  and  sound 
critical  theory  of  art.  We  who  know  enough  to  go 
wrong,  must  know  enough  to  go  right.  If  the 
reader  would  realise  how  grave  a  peril  facility  of 
execution,  unguided  and  unrestrained,  may  become, 
282 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  MOVEMENT 

he  has  but  to  glance  around  at  the  anarchy  and 
confusion  which  have  everywhere  invaded  the 
domain  of  art.  Never  were  energy  and  activity  in 
that  domain  so  universal  as  at  present,  yet  never 
was  the  direction  which  all  this  energy  and  activity 
should  take  more  obscure.  One  knows  not  whether 
to  marvel  most  at  the  volume  of  the  yearly  output 
which  this  energy  is  responsible  for,  or  at  the 
number  of  spasmodic  and  contradictory  impulses  m 
which  it  fritters  itself  away.  Looking  down  once 
on  the  great  cataract  south  of  Wady  Haifa,  which 
the  Arabs  call  the  "  Belly  of  Stone,''  I  saw  below  me 
a  vast  expanse  of  scattered  boulders  among  which 
the  water  gushed  and  foamed,  spouting  in  a  thousand 
petty  channels,  sometimes  in  this  direction,  some- 
times in  that,  so  that  in  the  chaos  and  din  it  was 
difficult  to  distinguish  any  forward  movement  at 
all.  Never  was  the  progress  of  water  in  less  propor- 
tion to  its  energy.  Voluble  yet  incoherent,  eager  yet 
aimless,  of  such  a  kind  is  the  activity  which  possesses 
modern  art.  No  one  will  deny  what  all  lament. 
The  speculation  at  the  back  of  every  mind  is,  how 
are  we  to  regain  the  coherence  and  simplicity  we 
have  lost,  how  are  we  to  curb  and  control  this 
terrible  dexterity  which  takes  the  impress  of  every 
random  whim  with  such  fatal  facility  ? 

Will  the  art  of  criticism  prove  equal  to  such  a 
task  ?  Intellect,  with  its  realisation  of  the  actual 
appearance  and  structure  of  things,  has  given  us  the 
dexterity :  will  intellect,  pressed  further  and  reveal- 
ing inward  principles  of  coherence  and  order,  teach 
us  how  to  curb  and  control  it  ?  I  do  not  mean  to 
suggest  that  criticism  can  ever  stand  us  in  the  stead 

283 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

of  creative  genius,  still  less  that  it  can  be  a  substi- 
tute for  those  profound  impulses  of  emotion  and 
faith  which  unite  whole  populations  in  a  common 
endeavour  and  are  the  main  instruments  in  the 
evolution  of  artistic  epochs.  Criticism  will  never 
of  itself  generate  a  great  creative  epoch.  It  may, 
however,  prepare  the  way  for  such  an  epoch,  and  it 
may  greatly  enhance  its  value  when  it  comes.  And 
in  the  meantime,  while  we  are  still  in  the  experi- 
mental stage,  it  may  instil  the  beginnings  of  a 
purpose  and  a  concerted  aim  into  the  experiments 
of  the  hour  by  formulating  a  body  of  authoritative 
ideas  which  may  serve  as  a  check  on  the  too  facile 
indulgence  in  personal  vagaries,  and  suggest  to  all 
earnest  people  the  existence  of  certain  assured  clues 
amid  the  labyrinth  of  alternatives  around  them. 

This  seems  the  task  cut  out  for  modern  art  criticism. 
The  new  circumstances  under  which  art  is  now 
carried  on  are  forcing  every  year  more  peremptorily 
this  duty  upon  it.  To  share  the  enthusiasms  of  the 
moment,  to  follow  instead  of  guiding  public  opinion, 
is  an  easy  critical  method  and  one  sure  of  reward, 
for  he  will  not  have  to  wait  long  for  recognition 
who  supplies  us  with  reasons  for  liking  what  we  like 
already.  But  it  is  not  by  such  means  that  criticism 
will  justify  its  claim  to  be  considered  a  serious 
intellectual  vocation.  That  claim  it  can  justify  only 
by  shouldering  the  new  responsibility  cast  upon  it 
and  setting  itself  to  build  up  a  code  of  laws  which 
shall  answer  the  purpose  of  the  old  executive  limita- 
tions in  controlling  and  concentrating  the  creative 
faculty. 

284 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 

The  question  of  style :  Style  in  French  furniture  :  What  con- 
stitutes it :  The  luxury  of  this  furniture  its  sole  reason  for 
existence  :  French  society  in  the  age  of  Louis  XV.  :  Luxury 
and  frivolity  the  governing  motives  of  its  every  action  : 
Aspect  of  France  and  of  French  policy  in  that  age  ;  French 
colonisation  in  the  East  and  West :  French  campaigns  :  De- 
cUne  of  the  military  spirit  :  The  reign  of  corruption  •  Diderot 
and  the  Encyclopaedists  :  The  seriousness  of  the  Court  eti- 
quette :  Total  severance  of  French  aristocratic  life  from  all 
real  practical  considerations  :  Its  approaching  doom  and  the 
terror  that  hangs  over  it :  The  visible  manifestation  of  these 
ideas  embodied  in  its  characteristic  art 

PROBABLY  every  one  is  secretly  impressed  by  the 
prestige  and  significance  of  style,  and,  in  some  dim 
way,  is  made  conscious  of  the  fact  that  style  pos- 
sesses a  meaning  and  is  fraught  with  an  intelligible 
message.  The  uniformity  and  unanimity  of  great 
buildings  is  proof  of  the  existence  of  such  a  mean- 
ing. Coherence  of  structure  stands  for  coherence 
of  thought.  Where  not  a  detail,  or  smallest  feature 
which  in  any  way  conflicts  with  the  general  character, 
is  admitted,  we  cannot  but  be  aware  of  an  intelligent 
principle  at  work,  selecting  and  rejecting.  We 
observe  also  that  this  principle  is  independent  of 
and  stronger  than  individual  will,  since  the  more 
it  comes  into  play  the  more  the  initiative  of  the 
individual  is  superseded  and  his  action  absorbed. 

285 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
From  this  absorption  of  the  individual  there  results 
that  uniformity  of  the  great  styles  which,  we  feel, 
can  embody  no  petty  whim  or  chance  current  of 
floating  fashion,  but  a  powerful,  deep-seated  con- 
viction of  the  age.  The  typical  buildings  that 
stretch  back  in  long  array  into  the  past,  Doric 
temple  and  Roman  palace,  and  early  Christian 
basilica  and  Arab  mosque  and  soaring  Gothic 
minster,  seem  each  to  incarnate  this  spirit  of  their 
own  time.  So  different,  yet  each  instinct  with 
definite  character,  they  invite  us,  like  sphinx  riddles, 
to  guess  their  meaning.  And  we  are  never  tired  of 
guessing.  Each  generation  in  turn  addresses  itself 
to  the  task,  and  ponders  over  the  message  which 
it  feels  must  inhabit  forms  so  harmonious  and 
coherent. 

Such  is  the  attraction  of  style.  But  it  is  not 
confined  to  styles  of  architecture.  No  sooner,  even 
in  comparatively  trivial  subjects,  do  we  come  in 
touch  with  that  peculiar  uniformity  and  ordered 
motion  which  marks  the  presence  of  style  than  we 
are  conscious  of  the  same  sense  of  definite  character 
and  meaning.  Styles  of  furniture  have  this  definite 
character  as  well  as  styles  of  building.  Louis  Quinze 
furniture  is  as  uniform  as  Gothic  architecture. 
There  is,  however,  this  difference,  that  the  purpose 
and  meaning  of  style  in  furniture  is  slighter  and 
more  on  the  surface  than  the  meaning  of  style  in 
architecture,  and  for  this  very  reason  is  perhaps 
easier  to  seize.  The  meaning  of  Gothic  lies  deep  in 
the  heart  of  its  age.  It  is  the  voice  of  national  con- 
viction, inexhaustible  in  interest  but  difficult  com- 
pletely +0  grasp  and  formulate.  The  meaning  of 
286 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 
styles  in  furniture  referS;  as  a  rule,  to  the  society  of 
the  period,  and  deals  not  so  much  with  national 
conviction  as  with  the  manners  and  life  of  a  class. 

In  attempting  the  following  interpretation  of 
French  art  I  have  at  least  this  advantage,  that  1  am 
dealing  with  a  subject  familiar  to  every  one.  French 
eighteenth-century  furniture  has  been  so  long  a 
fashion  that  most  people's  houses  contain  specimens 
of  it.  Moreover,  besides  these  scattered  examples, 
we  have  our  great  collections  :  we  have  the  Wallace 
Collection  giving  us  the  full  blaze  and  Hfe  of  the 
ancient  regime j  and  the  Jones  Collection  giving  us 
that  exquisite  grace  and  refinement  which  to  the  end 
kept  the  sight  of  horrible  reality  from  the  vision  of 
poor  Marie  Antoinette.  These  are  museums,  not  of 
the  furniture  only,  but  of  the  painting  and  whole 
system  of  decoration  of  their  period.  It  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  point  out  the  great  value  of  such 
collections  as  these,  when  it  comes  to  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  meaning  of  a  style.  It  is,  as  I  said,  in  its 
unanimity,  in  its  development  of  the  same  theme  and 
the  same  set  of  ideas  in  many  different  ways,  that 
the  significance  of  style  is  felt.  All  that  we  set  eyes 
on,  not  the  furniture  only  but  the  ornaments  and 
bric-a-brac  and  pictures  on  the  wall,  must  combine 
to  convey  the  same  impression,  if  that  impression  is 
to  be  adequately  appreciated  and  rightly  understood. 
It  is  this  unanimity  in  variety,  the  consciousness  of 
being  surrounded  by  ideas  of  the  same  character, 
but  reproduced  in  countless  different  ways,  which 
fills  the  suites  of  rooms  at  Hertford  House  with  the 
very  atmosphere  and  life  of  the  French  eighteenth- 
centurv  aristocracy.    True,  what  we  have  here  is  no 

287 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

deep  and  solemn  conviction,  such  as  inspires  those 
great  manifestations  of  style  in  which  the  spirit  of  an 
age  is  embodied.  It  is  only  the  spirit  of  a  section 
of  society  which  pervades  these  salons ;  a  section, 
too,  confessedly  frivolous  and  pleasure-loving  and 
altogether  lacking  in  seriousness  and  depth  of 
interest.  And  yet,  the  delightful  complacency  with 
which  the  philosophy  of  this  particular  class  is 
voiced  for  us  by  the  glittering  harmony  through 
which  we  move,  makes  it  impossible  not  to  wish  to 
transcribe  the  message.  French  furniture  has  often 
been  praised  for  its  beauty,  its  preciousness,  its  fine 
workmanship ;  but  how  seldom  do  we  hear  it  praised 
for  its  historical  significance  I  How  seldom  do  we 
value  it  for  what  it  tells  us,  not  of  the  manners  and 
tastes  only,  but  of  the  ideas  and  limitations  and  view 
of  life  of  this  dominant  section  of  the  French  nation  ! 
Let  us  remember,  too,  what  there  is  of  peculiar  and 
fatal  significance  about  a  section  of  society  in  whose 
doom  the  spirit  of  opera  boiiffe  and  tragedy,  un- 
paralleled frivolity  and  unparalleled  ferocity,  are  so 
horribly  mingled  and  involved.  The  airs  and  graces, 
the  solemn  antics  and  elaborate  etiquette,  of  the 
French  noblesse,  relieved  against  the  inky  back- 
ground of  the  Revolution,  are  inspired  with  a  half- 
serious,  wholly  pathetic  interest  which,  in  themselves, 
they  might  not  possess.  Moriiiiri  te  salntant.  This 
debonnaire  philosophy,  so  lightly  echoed  by  the 
splendour  of  these  rooms,  is  the  philosophy  which 
was  controverted  by  the  guillotine. 

How  shall  we  seize  it  ?  Let  us  choose  the  most 
obvious  characteristic  here  present  and  question 
that ;  it  is  sure  to  be  the  most  significant  one.  Nor 
288 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 
as  to  this  most  obvious  characteristic,  is  there  much 
room  for  doubt.  The  richness  of  material,  the 
elaborate  and  infinitely  painstaking  workmanship 
of  each  object  we  turn  to,  suggest  at  once  a 
consummate  luxury  and  the  manners  and  life  of 
an  essentially  luxurious  class.  It  is  a  furniture 
dc  litxe,  if  ever  there  was  one.  The  gorgeousness 
and  glitter  of  it,  the  loaded  gilding  of  the  chairs 
and  couches,  the  inlays  of  precious  woods  and 
metals,  the  carved  ormolu  and  painted  porcelain, 
the  ornaments  of  gold  and  silver  and  enamel, 
studded  with  gems,  or  wrought  out  of  lapis  lazuli, 
or  rock  crystal  or  other  rare  and  precious  stone,  all 
bear  out  this  character.  The  more  we  look,  the 
more  this  impression  is  confirmed.  Luxury  here  is 
dominant,  is  the  master  motive.  It  dominates,  for 
one  thing,  the  labour  that  serves  it.  There  is  never 
any  mistaking  for  a  m.jment  the  kind  of  excellence 
in  workmanship  which  springs  from  the  free  use  of 
a  natural  gift,  and  which  belongs  to  all  expert  crafts- 
manship. It  has  a  flexibility,  what  musicians  call 
a  sense  of  touch,  which  stamps  it  at  once.  The 
excellence  here  displayed  is  not  of  that  kind.  It  is 
a  forced  excellence  ;  an  excellence  not  exerting 
itself  freely,  but  constrained,  whether  it  will  or  no, 
to  celebrate  the  supremacy  of  luxury.  Rarely,  save 
among  Orientals,  do  we  find  the  toil  of  the  work- 
man lavished  in  a  spirit  so  patiently  servile. 

This  luxury,  then,  so  universal  and  so  dominant, 
is  the  obvious  characteristic  which  we  are  to  question 
more  closely.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  luxurious 
furniture  made  in  all  epochs,  and  perhaps,  at  the 
first  glance,  it  might  puzzle  us  to  say  what  is  the 

T  289 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

difference  between  this  universal,  luxurious  furniture 
scattered  through  the  ages,  and  the  luxurious  furni- 
ture of  Hertford  House.  There  is,  however,  if  we 
consider  the  matter,  this  difference :  that  with 
luxurious  furniture  in  general  the  luxury  is  an 
attribute  dependent  on  the  use  of  the  thing.  It 
is  an  adornment  and  decoration  of  something  real, 
an  accessory  or  afterthought,  which,  though  often 
carried  far,  still  keeps  its  decorative  purpose  and 
does  not  thrust  itself  forward  as  the  aim  and  object 
for  which  the  thing  was  made. 

The  peculiarity,  on  the  contrary,  of  the  Hertford 
House  luxury  is  that  it  is  an  exposition  and  analysis 
of  the   quality  of  luxury  as  a  governing  motive. 
Ostentation  and  show  are  not  here  accessory  to  use 
and  comfort.    They  are  the  primary  conditions.     If 
we  question  any  bit  of  this  furniture  we  shall  find 
this  divorce  from  reality  admitted,  and  this  purpose 
of   display  confessed.    The  primary  use  of  chairs 
and  sofas  is,  after  all,  to  sit  or  he  upon,  and  in  most 
luxurious  furniture  this  use  is  fully  admitted,  and 
the  luxury  consists  in  elaborating  and  perfecting 
the  use,  and  by  adding  the   easiest  springs  and 
softest  cushions,  making  the  chair  or  sofa  still  more 
lie-able  or  sit-able  on.    But  the   Hertford   House 
chairs  and  sofas  are  made  for  no  such  purpose.  The 
adornment  lavished  on  them,  far  from  emphasising 
their  natural  use,  has  actually  annulled  that  use,  so 
that  they  are  now  far  less  lie-able  or  sit-able  on  than 
any  cottage  bench  or  stool  of  common  wood.    Sight- 
seeing is  tiring  work,  but  we  do  not  imagine  that  any 
visitor,  however  tired,  has  ever  felt  the  temptation 
to  sit  and  rest  on  one  of  these  stiff  and  gilded  seats, 
290 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 
The  reader  is  familiar,  probably,  with  an  archi- 
tectural theory  which  asserts  that  ornament  must 
conform  to  structural  use.     This    theory,    which 
applies  to  a  good  deal  besides  architecture,  seems 
to  be,   in   the  case  of  French  eighteenth-century 
craftsmanship,  reversed.     None  of  it  suggests  use 
at  all.    We  have  said  that  the  chairs  and  sofas  do 
not  invite  us  to  sit  on  them.    But  neither  do  the 
glittering  inlaid  tables  with  their  golden  legs  offer 
to  supply  the  ordinary  use  of  tables.    How  could 
we  ventuie  to  hide  such  splendour  under  a  litter  of 
newspapers  and  novels  ?    In  the    same    way  the 
escritoires  are  not  made  to  be  written  at,  and  the  cabi- 
nets are  not  made  for  putting  things  away  in.  Nothing, 
in  short,  that  we  look  at,  makes  it  any  longer  its 
object  and  purpose  in  life  to  fulfil  those  functions 
for  which  originally,  as  a  species,  it  was  called  into 
existence.    Everything  has  passed  beyond  that  stage, 
and,  by  common  consent,  has  substituted  a  decora- 
tive for  a  useful  purpose.    Functional  use  has  re- 
tired into  the  background.    Show  and  display  have 
asserted  themselves  as  the  raison  d'etre  and  serious 
business  of  life.     With  immense  pains  and  patient 
care,  each  article  and  object,  in  all  these  gorgeous 
suites  of  apartments,   sets  out  to  be  primarily  an 
ornament ;  divests  itself  of  reality,  puts  away  the 
practical  purposes  of  life  and  gives  itself  up  to  an 
exclusively  decorative  treatment. 

This  is,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the  note  of  the  style 
before  us.  If,  as  we  stroll  from  room  to  room,  we 
take  with  us  the  formula  '*  a  decorative  rather  than 
a  useful  purpose"  and  apply  it  to  each  object  in 
turn,  we  shall  find  that  each  will  bow  to  the  justice 

291 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
of  the  definition.  Style,  as  we  said,  marks  the 
presence  of  a  definite  meaning  or  message,  and  here 
we  have  the  meaning  of  these  French  styles ;  a 
meaning  scarcely  to  be  questioned  by  any  one  who, 
in  such  a  place  as  Hertford  House,  submits  himself 
to  the  cumulative  influence  of  his  surroundings. 
Let  us,  that  we  may  the  better  realise  it,  note  its 
moment  of  origin.  Louis  Quatorze  furniture,  like 
Louis  Quinze,  is  luxurious  and  splendid,  with  its 
brocades  and  tapestries  and  rich  BouUe  inlays.  But 
it  is  splendid  in  a  stately,  dignified  fashion.  It 
harmonises  well  with  the  ordered  long  arcades  and 
the  great  ceremonious  suites  of  salons  of  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  period.  Moreover,  when  we  come  to 
consider  it,  it  has  by  no  means  yet  lost  touch  with 
the  uses  and  realities  of  life.  A  study  of  the  furni- 
ture collection  in  the  South  Kensington  galleries  will 
show  that,  as  regards  shape  and  form,  a  good  deal 
of  the  simplicity  and  massiveness  of  the  old  Gothic 
furniture  survives  even  to  the  eighteenth  century. 
Through  the  Renaissance  period  this  massiveness  is 
retained,  though  the  tendency  to  redundancy  of 
carving  is  apparent.  Down  to  the  latter  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century  the  sculpture  is  for  the  most 
part  out  of  the  solid  wood,  and  the  pieces,  in 
material  and  shape,  are  simple  and  strong  in  con- 
struction, though  treated  pompously.  Later  we 
come  to  inlaid  marquetries,  but  still  the  substantial 
forms  survive.  The  decoration,  however  overdone, 
does  not  usurp  the  place  of  function  and  become 
the  ruling  purpose.  And  this  is  the  case  even  during 
the  gorgeous  Louis  Quatorze  period.  M.  Havard 
selects  the  word  "majestic"  as  descriptive  of  the 
292 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 

art  as  well  as  the  life  of  that  period,  or  at  least  of  the 
first  half  of  it,  and,  admitting  a  trifle  of  vulgarity  in 
the  majesty,  it  is  a  well-applied  epithet.  The  fact  is 
Louis  Quatorze  splendour  still  cloaks  something 
real.  Affairs  of  state  still  count  for  something. 
The  pride  and  power  of  the  nation  are  still  important 
considerations.  Louis  never  allows  any  one  to 
forget  that  he  is  a  great  king.  This  sense  of  dignity 
and  stateliness  runs  all  through  the  splendour  of 
this  reign,  as  it  runs  all  through  its  life  and  politics, 
and  makes  one  constantly  aware  that  it  is  a  splendour 
compatible  with  a  certain  large  effectiveness  of 
character  and  aim. 

With  the  passing  of  the  grand  monarque,  how- 
ever, this  majesty  passes  too.  "Avec  le  dernier 
soupir  du  plus  majestueux  des  rois,  la  majeste,  deja, 
quelque  peu  meconnue,  acheve  de  s'envoler  de  la 
terre."  A  new  spirit  that  knew  nothing  of  the  duties 
and  responsibilities  of  life  takes  its  place.  *' En 
quelques  instants  tout  change;  le  vieux  decor 
s'effondre  et  sur  ses  mines  un  monde  nouveau, 
frais,  pimpant,  gracieux,  l^ger,  indiscret  et  joyeux, 
s'etablit  et  s'installe."  Seriousness  in  life  and  art 
goes  out  with  Louis  Quatorze ;  frivolity  comes  into 
life  and  art  with  Louis  Quinze.  The  old  strength 
and  stateliness  give  place  to  an  artificial  and  excessive 
refinement  in  workmanship,  not  of  detail  only  but 
of  form.  What  was  ornament  in  the  older  style 
assumes  control,  eats  form  away,  until  form  itself 
becomes  ornament.  It  is  the  peculiarity  of  the 
studies  of  curves  and  scroll  work  of  Louis  Quinze 
furniture,  and  the  slender,  attenuated  proportions 
of  Louis  Seize,  that  they  no  longer  represent  the 

293 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
beautifying  and  perfecting  of  the  common  things  of 
Hfe,  which  after  all  is  the  true  function  of  art  as 
applied  to  things  like  furniture,  but  minister  and 
bear  witness^  to  a  life  cut  off  from  such  things.  It  is 
impossible,  as  I  have  said,  to  associate  these  exquisite 
creations  with  the  idea  of  everyday  life  and  common 
use  at  all.  They  have  forgotten  all  about  use  and 
reality,  and  have  made  of  mere  luxury  their  raison 
d'etu  and  supreme  justification.  The  artificial  has 
to  them  become  the  real. 

To  this  we  return  as  the  keynote  of  these  later 
styles,  and  it  is  in  this  that  they  portray  so  effectively 
the  life  of  the  class  and  period  to  which  they  belong. 
For  it  is  not  mere  luxury  which  is  found  in  the 
French  court  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Luxury 
has  generally  been  a  habitant  of  courts.  It  is  the 
fact  that  luxury  has  assumed  control  of  life,  that  it 
has  eaten  into  society's  core,  eaten  realities  and 
duties  quite  away,  and  become  itself  the  only  serious 
preoccupation  of  life,  which  stamps  it,  in  the  French 
society  of  the  time,  with  such  peculiar  significance. 
The  remarkable  thing  about  this  French  society  is 
that  it  is  incapable  of  any  useful  function  whatever. 
The  courtiers  and  nobles  of  Louis  XV.'s  reign  seem 
to  have  lost  all  power  of  taking  an  interest  in 
anything  save  court  scandals  and  intrigues.  Those 
among  them  whose  memory  goes  back  to  the 
manners  of  an  earlier  age,  an  age  not  destitute  of 
courage,  dignity  and  fortitude,  deplore  the  falling 
off  in  virile  virtue.  They  can  scarcely  credit  the 
change  which  has  taken  place  under  their  very  eyes. 
There  is  no  principle,  not  honour  itself  even,  which 
has  not  succumbed  to   the   corroding   affects   of 

m 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 
frivolity.  The  nation  is  visibly  drifting  to  destruc- 
tion, the  signs  of  an  approaching  catastrophe  grow 
daily  more  threatening,  yet  society  jests  and  titters 
on,  incapable  of  realising  anything  save  its  own 
dissipations  and  its  own  elaborate  etiquette. 

Let  us  examine  this  a  little  more  closely.  Let  us 
take  the  formula  we  applied  to  the  furniture — a 
decorative  rather  than  a  useful  purpose — and  see 
how  it  answers  as  applied  to  society.  And  in  apply- 
ing this  formula  to  society  let  us  note  this  :  That  it 
is  not  the  dissipation  and  luxury  themselves  which 
are  significant,  but  the  fact  that  the  dissipation  and 
luxury  have  usurped  the  place  of  reality  and  become 
the  one  serious  business  of  life.  The  significant 
symptoms,  accordingly,  will  be  those  which  show  us 
this  reality  passing  out  of  the  serious  and  important 
things  of  life.  Such  facts  as  that  the  Prince  de 
Conti  used  the  dust  of  a  crushed  diamond  to  dry 
the  ink  of  a  billet  to  his  mistress,  or  that  the  Queen 
gave  the  Dauphin  a  carriage  covered  with  rubies 
and  sapphires,  or  that  Madame  de  Matignon  paid 
24,000  livres  a  year  to  have  her  hair  brushed,  or 
that  the  Comte  d'Artois  pulled  down  and  rebuilt  a 
castle  to  prepare  a  f^te  for  the  Queen,  or  that  young 
de  Chenonceaux  lost  700,000  livres  in  one  night's 
gambling,  or  that  another  courtier  kept  forty  horses 
for  an  occasional  ride  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  and 
another  bought  up  and  emptied  the  streets  leading 
to  his  residence  that  his  amours  might  be  conducted 
in  secret,  or  that  Madame  du  Barry's  bills  during 
the  time  she  was  in  favour  amounted  to  some  four 
million  livres  ;  such  facts  as  these — and  they  might 
be  multiplied  to  fill  volumes — are  not,  after  all,  the 

29s 


THE  WORKS  OP  MAN 

kind  of  facts  that  best  serve  to  show  the  character 
of  the  luxury  of  the  age.  They  can  be  matched, 
more  or  less  closely,  in  the  histories  of  most  aristo- 
cracies in  most  ages.  The  facts  which  are  significant 
are  those  which  testify  to  the  insensibility  of  this 
pleasure-loving  class  to  natural  instincts  and  primitive 
duties  and  responsibilities  ;  which  testify,  that  is  to 
say,  to  the  ebbing  of  reality  out  of  the  serious  things 
of  life.  When,  for  instance,  a  Comte  de  Tilly  records 
that  he  was  brought  up  by  valets,  or  a  Due  de 
Biron,  observing  that  a  lackey  had  the  superinten- 
dence of  his  education,  remarks,  "J'etais  d'ailleurs 
comme  tous  les  enfans  de  mon  age  et  de  ma  sorte, 
les  plus  jolis  habits  pour  sortir,  nu  et  mourant  de 
faim  a  la  maison,"  then  we  begin  to  realise  what 
was  being  deducted  from  the  serious  things  of  life 
to  pay  for  the  frivolities.  It  is  curious  to  notice 
that  the  value  of  children  in  this  society  was 
essentially  a  decorative  one.  To  be  trained  in  the 
etiquette  of  their  elders,  to  be  dressed  in  the  mode, 
tlie  little  boys  in  ruffles  and  swords,  the  little  girls 
in  rouge  and  patches  with  false  hair  piled  on  their 
heads,  and  have  their  precocious  gallantry  and  savoir- 
faire  paraded  to  the  laughter  and  applause  of  society, 
were  the  uses  they  were  put  to.  Their  infantine 
compliments  and  bons  mots  are  recited  with  en- 
thusiasm, and  they  are  allowed  to  constitute  a 
charming  addition  to  the  lapdog  and  the  negro 
page  of  their  mother's  suite. 

In  the  same  way,  when,  in  turning  over  the 
memoirs  of  the  day,  we  find  ourselves  arrested  by 
phrase  after  phrase  and  episode  after  episode  which 
record  how  entirely  the  whole  meaning  of  marriage 
2<j6 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 

and  married  life  has  been  swamped  in  a  sea  of 
intrigues  and  petty  liaisons,  the  same  sense  of  the 
sapping  of  the  serious  things  of  life  is  brought 
home  to  us.  One  almost  hesitates  to  intrude  moral 
considerations  into  the  presence  of  anything  so  irre- 
sponsibly gay  as  the  society  of  the  French  court, 
for  indeed  there  is  something  disarming  and  next 
door  to  innocent  in  the  excesses  of  people  who  are 
quite  unaffectedly  and  honestly  blind  to  the  serious 
side  of  things.  At  the  same  time,  nothing  can  alter 
the  fact  that  fathers  and  mothers  and  children  and 
husbands  and  wives  are  among  life's  chief  realities, 
and,  by  a  normally  healthy  society,  must  be  so 
treated.  The  truth,  of  course,  is  that  where  great 
store  is  set  on  trifling  things  and  the  pursuit  of 
them  followed  up  with  intense  seriousness,  this 
seriousness  has  to  be  paid  for  in  the  loss  of  a 
corresponding  amount  of  interest  in  what  is  real 
and  important.  It  is  this  loss  of  interest  in  what  is 
real  and  important  which  is  the  really  deadly 
symptom  of  the  French  court  life  of  the  period. 
The  supreme  importance  attached  to  gaiety  and 
dissipation  and  show  has  so  sucked  the  strength  out 
of  all  real  and  important  functions  that  at  last  the 
sense  for  reality  has  become  a  lost  sense.  Children 
are  not  realities  ;  wives  and  husbands  are  not  reali- 
ties ;  victories  and  defeats,  as  we  shall  see  in  a 
minute,  and  shame  and  dishonour  are  not  realities. 
Nothing  can  exist,  nothing  can  occur,  but  it  is 
turned  immediately  into  food  for  jests.  The  defeat 
of  Hochstadt  is  deplored  because  the  skit  on  it  lacks 
humour.  Rosbach  is  approved  because  its  verses 
are  excellent.      Necker's  attempts  as  Minister  of 

^^1 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
Finance  to  stave  off  national  bankruptcy  count  for 
nothing.  His  fitness  for  his  office  is  proved  by  a 
particularly  splendid  banquet  given  to  the  fashion- 
able world  of  Paris.  Every  event  however  tragic, 
every  crisis  however  grave,  is  dealt  with  as  comedy. 
In  proportion  as  the  unreal  has  become  real,  the 
real  has  become  unreal. 

But  this  instinct  for  unreality,  which  we  come  to 
recognise  in  the  court  party  as  quite  unfailing, 
reveals  itself  in  much  more  important  than  merely 
social  matters.  It  reveals  itself  with  just  as  much 
infallibility  in  matters  of  state  policy  and  national 
government.  It  is  important  to  remember  in  this 
connection  that  French  society  and  the  French 
Government  were,  in  spirit,  one.  Richelieu's  policy, 
bequeathed  by  him  to  Louis  Quatorze,  of  wrecking 
feudalism  once  and  for  all  by  depriving  the  great 
territorial  nobles  of  their  civil  duties  and  responsi- 
bilities, was  fated  to  have  as  grave  an  effect  on  the 
King's  authority  as  on  that  of  the  nobles  them- 
selves.  Shorn  of  all  useful  purpose,  their  authority 
and  functions  in  their  own  departments  usurped 
by  crown  officials,  the  aristocrats  left  their  huge 
chateaux  and  estates  and  gravitated  to  Versailles. 
If  they  could  not  be  useful  let  them  be  ornamental. 
It  had  been  decreed  that  the  State  should  be  nothing 
to  them,  they  proceeded  to  make  society  everything. 
Hence  was  developed  that  purely  decorative  purpose 
which  became  the  distinguishing  note  of  this  French 
society.  But  that  purpose  did  not  stop  at  society. 
It  proceeded  to  corrupt  the  governing  principle 
itself.  Imbedded,  so  to  speak,  in  the  heart  of  this 
society,  breathing  its  air,  living  its  life,  receiving  its 
298 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 

influence,  cut  off  by  it  from  the  outer  world,  the 
monarchy  became  rapidly  infected  with  its  spirit. 
It  had  created  a  frivolous  class  and  itself  caught  the 
disease.  The  Government  which  ensued,  a  Govern- 
ment of  mistresses  and  favourites  of  mistresses,  was 
animated  purely  by  the  prevailing  social  frivolity. 
Henceforth  monarchy  and  aristocracy  advance  to 
their  doom  hand  in  hand. 

We  shall  not  be  wandering  from  our  subject  if, 
without  plunging  too  deeply  into  history,  we  dwell 
just  long  enough  on  one  or  two  stages  of  this 
progress  to  bring  out  the  special  characteristic  we 
have  in  view.  Several  of  the  chief  factors  which 
were  leading  up  to  the  Revolution  had  their  origin 
in  the  middle  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
of  these  the  two  chief,  perhaps,  were  the  war  of  the 
Austrian  Alliance  and  the  philosophic  movement  in 
literature.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  thoroughly 
in  their  own  manner  was  the  handling  by  the  Court 
party  of  these  significant  events. 

During  these  middle  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century  two  distinct  and  opposed  lines  of  policy 
were  offered  to  France  to  choose  between.  One 
was  a  policy  of  concentration  ;  an  internal,  exclu- 
sively European  policy,  leading  to  no  national 
development  and  addressing  itself  merely  to  the 
adjustment  of  European  rivalries.  The  other  was 
a  policy  of  expansion,  consisting  in  the  recognition 
of  the  larger  opportunities  which  the  newly  realised 
East  and  West  were  beginning  to  unfold  to  human 
enterprise.  In  this  latter  policy  lay,  of  course, 
France's  true  line  of  progress.  Her  position,  both 
in  India  and  America,  was  strong.     In  America  she 

299 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
laid  claim  to  the  whole  basin  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
and  the  Mississippi,  and  was  prepared  to  back 
her  claims.  In  1754  Washington's  expedition  was 
forced  to  capitulate,  and  in  the  following  year 
Braddock's  much  more  important  force  was  practi- 
cally annihilated.  The  English  Company  of  the 
Ohio  was  quashed,  and  English  attempts  at  expan- 
sion everywhere  checked  and  foiledc  French  forts 
and  blockhouses  rose  on  every  eminence  and 
commanded  every  valley.  It  was  France's  avowed 
object  to  drive  the  English  east  of  the  Alleghany 
Mountains,  and  she  was  in  a  fair  way  by  1755  to 
accomplish  it.  Similarly,  in  India  the  boldness  of 
Dupleix's  schemes  of  French  conquest  and  dominion 
seemed  justified  by  circumstances.  In  the  rivalry 
between  French  Pondich^ry  and  British  Madras 
the  French  settlement  had  the  best  of  it.  Madras 
fell  in  1746.  In  1748  the  combined  land  and  sea 
expeditions  under  Major  Lawrence  and  Admiral 
Boscawen  against  Pondich^ry  were  repulsed.  It 
is  noticeable  that  in  these  colonial  wars  the  French 
leaders  were  usually  men  of  remarkable  energy  and 
dash,  prompt  to  act  and  ready  to  accept  full  responsi- 
bility for  their  actions.  Such  were  La  Gallisoniere, 
Du  Quesne  and  La  Corne  in  America,  and  Dupleix, 
La  Bourdonnais  and  Lally  in  India.  They  were 
well  supported,  and  the  vigour  with  which  France's 
interests  were  served  in  these  enterprises  is  in  strong 
contrast  to  the  nerveless  and  feeble  character  of  her 
operations  in  Europe.  The  truth  is  that  it  was  in 
the  opportunities  for  national  expansion  promised 
by  India  that  the  hopes  of  French  development  lay, 
and  so  long  as  she  showed  a  disposition  to  avail 
300 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 
herself  of  these  opportunities  France  drew  to  her 
service  all  the  keenest  and  most  adventurous  spirits 
among  her  children.  Instinctively  these  felt  the 
inspiration  of  a  truly  national  enterprise,  and  their 
activity  and  vigorous  tactics  bear  witness  to  the 
stimulus  which  arises  from  co-operating  with  the 
spirit  of  the  age. 

Their  designs,  however,  as  we  know,  came  to 
nothing.  In  a  few  years'  time  French  hopes  of  ex- 
pansion both  in  America  and  India  were  blighted. 
Not  for  a  century  was  France  to  resume,  under 
healthier  auspices,  the  scheme  of  national  develop- 
ment which  Du  Quesne  and  Dupleix  had  fore- 
shadowed. What  flung  her  back  was  the  Austrian 
Alliance.  Of  the  two  policies  she  chose  the  retro- 
grade one.  In  bucklering  the  cause  of  Austria 
against  the  progressive  races  of  the  North,  France 
associated  herself  with  a  set  of  worn-out,  aristocratic 
and  feudal  traditions  which  were  sinking  into 
decrepitude.  She  championed  the  ideas  that  were 
going  out  against  the  ideas  that  were  coming  in. 
The  circumstances  attending  the  treaty  and  the 
conduct  of  the  war  that  followed  were  all  of  a  piece. 
La  Pompadour,  as  the  reader  knows,  was  the  guiding 
spirit  throughout.  It  is  not  every  day  that  an  angry 
woman  can  make  the  armed  strength  of  a  nation 
the  instrument  of  her  jealousies  and  caprices,  but 
La  Pompadour  enjoyed  that  luxury.  Frederick 
never  troubled  to  conceal  his  opinion  of  her,  and 
his  contemptuous  "Je  ne  la  connais  pas,"  when 
Voltaire  presented  him  her  compliments,  was  in 
stinging  contrast  to  Maria  Theresa's  adroit  flattery. 
Old  Kaunitz,  past  master  in  the  diplomacy  of  courts, 

30T 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
easily  perceived  the  possibilities  of  the  situation, 
and,  while  the  Empress  plied  the  mistress  with  com- 
pliments, made  it  the  object  of  his  manoeuvres  to 
secure  the  latter's  good  offices  on  behalf  of  Austria. 
That  done,  all  was  done.  La  Pompadour  was 
France's  mistress  as  much  as  Louis's.  Louis 
reigned  and  his  mistress  governed,  was  the  saying. 
The  crisis,  though  the  fate  of  nations  hang  on  it,  is 
purely  farcical  in  motive  and  idea.  La  Pompadour, 
snubbed  or  noticed  by  the  legitimate  sovereigns  of 
Europe,  suggests  to  our  fancy  a  Becky  Sharp, 
railing  at  the  Countess  of  Bareacres,  or  fawning  on 
the  Marquis  of  Steyne.  It  was  for  causes  such  as 
these  that  the  greatest  colonising  chances  ever  laid 
before  a  nation  were  neglected  and  thrown  away. 

Needless  to  say  the  whole  Court  party  threw 
itself  into  the  Pompadour  quarrel  with  immense 
enthusiasm.  If  there  was  a  nation,  or  society  rather, 
which  the  French  nobility  could  sympathise  with 
it  was  to  be  found  in  Vienna.  If  there  was  a  nation 
repellent  to  them  above  all  others  it  was  practical- 
minded,  unpolished  Prussia.  Frederick  himself 
might  stand  for  all  they  most  despised  and  least 
understood  in  human  nature.  They  armed  for  the 
campaign  with  delight  and  an  inconceivable  frivolity. 
It  was  a  new  distraction.  With  the  fatuity  which 
attended  them  whenever  they  came  in  contact  with 
realities  they  conceived  that  their  march  through 
Germany  would  be  a  species  of  grand  boar  hunt. 
Encumbered  with  baggage-trains  of  fine  clothes, 
perfumes  and  rare  wines  they  advanced  as  far  as 
Rosbach,  where  Frederick's  rough  troopers,  in  the 
space  of  a  single  hour,  scattered  them  to  the  four 
302 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 

winds.  Between  Bernis,  La  Pompadour's  Minister 
in  Paris,  and  the  generals  in  the  field  there  ensues 
a  correspondence  which  curiously  brings  out  for  us 
the  spirit  in  which  France  was  conducting  this 
enterprise.  Soubise,  chosen  to  command,  as  we 
are  carefully  told,  for  no  military  qualifications,  but 
for  his  ingratiating  manners  and  popularity  at  Court, 
veils  the  disgrace  of  a  rout  he  seems  scarcely  to 
comprehend  under  a  tissue  of  euphuisms,  excuses 
and  compliments.  The  more  experienced  Saint- 
Germain  writes  bluntly  that  he  had  under  him  a 
band  of  thieves  and  assassins  who  were  as  ready  to 
mutiny  in  camp  as  they  were  to  run  away  in  the 
field.  *'  Never  was  anything  like  it ;  never  was 
there  such  a  rotten  army.  The  King  has  about  the 
worst  infantry  under  the  sun  and  the  most  un- 
disciplined. How  can  we  fight  with  such  troops  ? 
The  country  was  covered  with  our  runaway  men 
for  forty  miles  round."  He  adds  savagely,  what 
was  indeed  the  thought  of  many,  "  Our  nation  has 
no  longer  any  military  spirit,  and  the  sentiment  of 
honour  is  dead  in  us."  The  veteran  Belleisle  writes 
in  similar  terms.  Never  would  he  have  believed 
that  those  Imperial  troops,  whose  traditions  and 
actions  had  been  so  splendid,  could  lose  thus 
suddenly  their  glorious  reputation  and  become  the 
scorn  of  Europe,  t "  We  were  not  ready,"  wails 
poor  Bernis  in  reply ;  "  we  had  to  begin  without 
proper  preparation  ;  on  s'est  embarque  temeraire- 
ment."  The  army  has  no  food,  and  no  shoes,  half 
of  it  is  without  clothes  and  the  cavalry  lack  boots. 
Saint-Germain  cuts  in  with  a  few  trenchant  home 
truths  about  the  men  and  officers.    The  army  indeed 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
appears  to  be  a  very  faithful  image  of  the  nation  at 
large.  '*The  misery  of  the  soldiers  would  make 
your  heart  bleed.  They  live  abject  and  despised, 
like  chained  dogs  kept  for  fighting."  The  officers 
meanwhile  entirely  neglect  their  military  duties  and 
devote  all  their  energies  to  plundering  the  country 
through  which  they  pass. 

As  the  campaign  progresses  the  rage  and  wonder 
of  those  conducting  or  watching  it  increase.  V  Mon 
Dieu,  que  notre  nation  est  aplatie !  et  qu'on  fait  peu 
d'attention  a  la  decadence  du  courage  et  de  I'honneur 
en  France  ! "  **  Dans  cent  regiments  on  ne  trou verait 
pas  six  bons  lieutenants-colonels.  Nous  ne  savons 
plus  faire  la  guerre.  Nulle  nation  n'est  moins 
militaire  que  la  notre  .  .  o  Nos  officiers  ne  valent 
rien,  ils  sont  indignes  de  servir.  Tous  soupirent 
apres  le  repos,  I'oisivete  et  I'argent/'  The  Versailles 
system  of  promotion  is  naturally  the  subject  of  s  jme 
criticism.  "  Our  best  officers,  recognising  that  there 
is  no  chance  of  promotion  for  them  since  they 
are  not  under  Court  protection,  can  ill  endure  to 
be  commanded  by  a  lot  of  boobies.  How  should 
young  colonels,  la  plupart  avec  des  mceurs  de 
grisette,  reinspire  the  army  with  the  ideas  of  honour 
and  constancy  ?  "  And  for  the  hundredth  time  the 
lament  is  heard  that  "ignorance,  frivolity,  negligence, 
cowardice  have  replaced  the  old  virile  and  heroic 
virtues." 

To  the  actors  in  these  scenes  the  general  incapacity 
and  decadence  were  inexplicable,  and  to  the  few 
who  remembered  earlier  and  better  traditions  the 
present  seemed,  as  Bernis  calls  it,  a  horrible  night- 
mare.   To  us,  looking  back,  the  obvious  suggestion 

304 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 

offers  itself  that  the  strength  of  France  was  not  put 
forth  in  this  war  because  it  was  not  really  a  French 
war  at  all.  Engaged  in  a  quarrel  of  the  King's 
mistress,  and  led  by  the  favourites  and  flunkeys  of 
Versailles,  the  rout  of  the  French  army  at  Rosbach, 
and  the  disgraces  of  the  campaigns  that  followed 
reveal  to  us,  not  the  degeneration  of  French 
character  and  courage,  but  rather  the  total  separa- 
tion and  divorce  of  the  governing  body  from  the 
realities  of  French  national  life.  It  is  curious  to 
observe  how,  while  the  pride  of  Choiseul  and  the 
soldierly  instinct  of  Saint-Germain  and  old  Belleisle 
prompt  them  to  a  reconstruction  of  the  army  and 
the  continuance  of  the  war,  Bernis,  weaker  but 
much  more  clear-sighted,  foretells  the  failure  of  such 
a  policy  and  lays  a  finger  on  the  real  cause  of 
mischief.  "  I  am  floored,  not  by  our  misfortunes, 
but  by  the  certainty  that  the  true  remedy  will  never 
be  applied.  There  is  but  one  cure — a  better 
Govifrnment.  Give  me  a  good  Government  and  I 
will  go  on  with  the  war,  but  there  is  no  chance  of 
our  getting  one."  A  Government  in  touch  with  the 
realities  of  the  nation's  life,  that  is  what  poor  Bernis 
feels  the  want  of.  It  is  the  hopeless  frivolity  of  the 
present  government  that  puzzles  and  sickens,  and 
indeed  seriously  threatens  to  send  him  off  his  head. 
**We  live  like  children,"  he  moans,  ^*the  wills  of 
children  control  the  governing  principle."  The 
King,  "nullement  inquiet  de  nos  inquietudes  ni 
embarrasse  de  nos  embarras,"  has  distractions  of 
his  own  into  which  it  is  well  not  to  pry  too  closely. 
The  Court  is  the  Court  still.  Its  gaiety  suffers  no 
eclipse.     Rather  the  contrary,  for  defeats  are  always 

U  305 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
something  to  talk  about,  and  the  loss  of  an  army  is 
almost  sure  to  inspire  a  good  joke  or  two.  In  vain 
poor  Bernis  tears  his  hair.  '*  II  n'y  a  pas  d'exemple 
qu'on  fait  si  gros  jeu  avec  la  meme  indifference 
qu'on  jouerait  une  partie  de  quadrille."  At  last 
he  can  stand  it  no  longer.  The  jokes  and  gibbering 
laughter  round  him  break  down  his  nerves.  He 
begs  and  implores  to  be  dismissed  from  office,  and, 
having  with  infinite  trouble  achieved  his  own  disgrace, 
creeps  away  to  his  exile  at  Vic-sur-Aisne,  glad  at  any 
price  to  be  quit  of  the  nightmare  existence  he  had 
of  late  been  leading. 

All  these  symptoms,  it  will  be  seen,  are  of  a  piece, 
and  all  may  be  referred  to  the  same  cause.  The 
purposeless,  unmeaning  quarrel,  the  unclothed  and 
unfed  armies,  the  Court-favourite  generals,  the 
languid  operations  in  the  field,  the  utter  indifference 
of  the  nation  to  the  whole  business,  the  idiot 
laughter  of  the  courtiers  at  their  own  reverses,  the 
frenzy  and  lamentations  of  poor  Bernis — what  are 
all  these  signs  but  a  testimony  to  the  one  root-fact 
that  the  French  Court  has  got  altogether  out  of 
touch  with  the  realities  of  hfe  ?  Granting  that,  all 
the  rest  follows.  In  conception  and  execution  the 
campaign  is  a  consistent  and  perfectly  frank  avowal 
that  in  the  governing  body  frivolity  has  passed  into 
that  phase  when  it  assumes  control  of  life.  From 
that  final  and  terrible  phase  there  is  no  return 
possible.  The  rout  of  armies,  the  loss  of  colonies, 
the  starvation  and  misery  of  the  people  are  events 
which  will  be  dealt  with  by  this  frivolity  in  accord- 
ance with  the  laws  of  its  own  nature.  You  may 
cut  these  people  in  pieces,  but  you  will  get  nothinii^ 
306 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 
real  or  serious  out  of  them.    They  will  pay  their 
visits  of  ceremony  and  talk  trifles  and  gallantry  in 
the  Bastille,  and  reserve,  in  all  good  faith,  their 
most  polished  witticisms  for  the  scaffold, 

And  if  these  great  events  and  the  policy  adopted 
by  the  country  bear  witness  to  the  dying  out  of  the 
sense  of  reality  in  the  Court  party,  not  less  clearly 
does  this  also  appear  when  we  turn  to  the  intellectual 
movement  of  the  age.  In  France,  more  distinctly 
than  elsewhere,  the  idea  leads  the  way,  and  the 
great  outburst  of  the  Revolution  was  preceded  forty 
years  earlier  by  an  intellectual  revolt  of  correspond- 
ing energy  and  daring.  It  was  during  the  decade 
from  1750  to  1760  that  this  revolt  declared  itself. 
The  appearance  of  the  Encyclopaedia  may  be  likened 
to  that  moment  in  a  general  action  when,  to  the 
scattered  shots  of  scouts  and  advance  guards,  succeeds 
the  roar  of  heavy  guns  in  position.  The  effect  of 
the  publication  in  affording  a  rallying-point  for 
independent  thinkers  was  decisive.  The  persecutions 
by  the  Court  and  the  Jesuits  broke  in  vain  upon  the 
movement.  D'Alembert  might  be  choked  off,  but 
the  indomitable  Diderot  gathered  round  him  a  body 
of  associates  of  unflinching  tenacity.  The  crisis 
had  in  it  something  of  the  excitement  of  an  actual 
conflict.  It  differs  from  most  philosophic  enter- 
prises in  this,  that  the  theories  and  definitions  of  the 
Encyclopaedists  are  not  abstract  theories  and  defini- 
tions, but  are  designed  for  immediate  use.  They  are 
not  shot  off  into  the  air,  but  are  aimed  at  a  mark. 
The  appearance  of  the  first  instalment  of  the  Ency- 
clopaedia marks  the  formal  declaration  of  the  mind 
of  France  for  the  nation  and  the  people,  and  against 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
the  Court  and  the  privileged  class,  and  the  agitation 
which  ensued  is,  as   Lord   Morley  in  his  Life  of 
Diderot  points  out,  not  a  speculative  and  philo- 
sophical agitation,  but  a  political  and  social  one. 

"  Political  ideas  have  been  grasped  as  instruments  ; 
philosophy  has  become  patriotism,"  are  phrases  in 
which  Lord  Morley  defines  the  character  of  this 
great  mental  awakening.  In  article  after  article  of 
the  Encyclopaedia  the  evils  of  the  age  are  hinted  at 
or  criticised.  That  more  than  a  quarter  of  France 
was  lying  untilled  or  abandoned ;  that  arbitrary 
imposts  resulted  in  the  flight  of  the  population  to 
the  large  towns  ;  that  large  tracts  of  land  are  turned 
into  wildernesses  by  the  abuse  of  the  game-preserving 
system ;  that  an  equal  distribution  of  profits  is 
preferable  to  an  unequal  one,  since  the  latter  results 
in  the  division  of  the  people  into  two  classes,  "one 
gorged  with  riches,  the  other  perishing  in  misery  "  ; 
these  are  the  kind  of  points  raised,  and  these,  it  will 
be  observed,  are  thrusts  dealt  in  earnest.  The 
Society  of  Jesus  clamours  for  the  suppression  of  the 
publication.  The  King  wavers  betwixt  a  snarl  and 
a  whimper.  It  is  suppressed,  and  Diderot  is  im- 
prisoned. It  is  continued,  and  Diderot  is  released. 
Meantime  the  movement  all  over  the  country 
gathers  head.  In  every  province  and  country  town 
the  pens  are  going.  Ideas,  with  that  wicked  sparkle 
in  them  which  marks  them  as  missiles,  are  hurled 
from  all  sides  against  King  and  courtiers  and  priests 
alike.  The  closeness  of  the  act  behind  the  thought 
is  indicated  by  the  public  excitement,  and  outrageous 
placards,  pamphlets,  and  satires  of  ever-increasing 
bitterness  and  directness  give  that  excitement  vent. 
308 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 

But  this,  after  all,  reveals  a  destructive  rather  than 
a  constructive  purpose,  and  it  is  by  its  constructive 
purpose  that  the  real  character  of  a  movement 
declares  itself.  What,  then,  is  the  constructive 
purpose  of  the  Encyclopaedists  ?  It  may  be  indi- 
cated in  two  words  of  Lord  Morley's.  They  were 
inspired,  he  says,  by  an  "  earnest  enthusiasm  for  all 
the  purposes,  interests,  and  details  of  productive 
industry,"  and,  following  this  bent,  they  attached  an 
importance  to  physical  science  and  the  practical 
arts  which  marks  "the  distinct  association  with 
pacific  labour  of  honour  and  a  kind  of  glory,  such 
as  had  hitherto  been  reserved  for  knights  and  friars." 
A  keen  sympathy  with,  and  earnest  desire  to  re- 
suscitate, all  that  is  practical,  all  that  is  productive ; 
sympathy  with  the  workshop,  the  factory,  the 
agriculturist,  the  artisan,  with  all  forms  of  useful 
and  fruitful  labour,  that  is  what  constitutes  the 
attitude  of  the  Encyclopaedists  towards  life.  And 
the  desire  to  revive  conditions  favourable  to  this 
useful  and  fruitful  labour  is  their  constructive 
purpose.  This  is  what  forms  the  bond  of  brother- 
hood between  them,  and  this  is  what  marks  the 
movement  as  the  definite  recognition  of  the  basis 
of  a  new  "  society." 

And  all  this  may  be  summed  up  by  saying  that 
the  object  of  this  movement  was  to  regain  touch 
with  the  realities  of  life.  That  is  the  long  and  short 
of  it.  At  the  very  moment  when  frivolity  is  entering 
into  undisputed  command  and,  in  all  affairs  of 
public  policy  and  private  life,  is  busy  turning  every- 
thing into  unreality  to  suit  its  own  nature,  the  mind 
q{  France  awakens  to  the  character  of  the  crisis  and 

309 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
declares  for  poor  despised  reality.  To  explode  the 
shams  and  make-believes  which  the  spirit  of  frivolity 
had  evolved,  and  to  raise  up  and  reanimate  all 
those  down-trodden  and  oppressed  causes  and 
interests  which  constituted  what  was  real  in  the 
national  life,  became  the  aim  of  the  French  intellect. 
If  ever  a  nation  was  saved  by  ideas  France  was  so 
saved  in  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
This  movement  it  was  which  in  the  world  of 
thought  and  of  ideas  represented  reality.  What 
share  had  the  Court  party  in  such  a  movement ; 
what  welcome  did  they  accord  it  ? 

No  mental  sensation  is  more  curious  than  the 
change  we  are  conscious  of  in  passing  from  the  affairs 
of  the  world,  and  the  eager  arguments  and  expositions 
which  were  exciting  the  interest  and  curiosity  of  all 
minds  in  France  capable  of  such  emotions,  to  the 
affairs  of  the  Court.  Here  all  life  seems  under  the 
power  of  some  spell  or  enchantment.  No  sound 
from  without  penetrates  the  magic  circle.  It  has 
its  own  ideas,  its  own  standards,  its  own  tastes  and 
engrossing  pursuits,  all  of  which  are  ignored  by  the 
world  as  the  affairs  of  the  world  are  by  it  ignored. 
Looking  at  it  from  the  outside  you  would  say  that 
life  within  this  circle  was  some  acted  charade  or 
pantomime,  and  that  by-and-by  the  actors  would 
relapse  into  the  pursuits  and  duties  of  everyday 
life.  Only  when  we  have  turned  the  pages 
slowly  of  some  of  the  abounding  memoirs  of  the 
period  do  we  begin  to  acquire  ourselves  some 
feeble  consciousness  of  the  seeming  reality  and 
apparent  genuineness  of  this  sham  existence.  Let 
us  quote,  as  a  specimen,  the  following  account  of 
310 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 

the  introduction  of  the  Venetian  ambassadress  to 
Court : 

"  Madame  de  Luynes  made  a  curtsy  to  the  Queen 
and  another  to  the  ladies  of  the  Court  and  then 
went  to  receive  Madame  Zeno,  the  wife  of  the 
Venetian  ambassador,  outside  the  door  of  the 
Queen's  room.  They  saluted  each  other,  com- 
plimented and  kissed  each  other.  Then  they  came 
in  to  the  Queen,  Madame  de  Luynes  walking  in 
front  to  the  right,  then  the  ambassadress,  and  after 
her  M.  de  Sainclot.  Madame  de  Luynes  having 
taken  up  her  position,  Madame  Zeno  made  one 
curtsy  to  the  Queen  as  she  entered,  a  second  in 
the  middle  of  the  room,  a  third  when  she  got  close 
to  the  Queen,  and  then  kissed  the  hem  of  her 
Majesty's  robe  and  made  a  fourth  curtsy,  at  the 
same  time  addressing  her  a  brief  compliment,  A 
few  minutes  afterwards  the  King  arrived  by  the 
salon  which  serves  as  the  Queen's  withdrawing- 
room.  Madame  Zeno  immediately  rose,  as  did  all 
the  ladies.  She  made  two  or  three  curtsys,  during 
which  the  King,  who  had  bowed  to  her  as  he  came 
in,  advanced  and  kissed  her,  but  only  on  one  side 
of  the  face.  Madame  Zeno  then  made  another 
curtsy.  The  King  retired  the  same  way  he  came. 
The  ambassadress  then  proceeded  to  repeat  the 
same  three  curtsys  she  had  made  on  entering 
except  that,  after  the  second,  she  made  one  to  the 
Court  ladies,  and  reserved  the  third  till  she  got  to 
the  door." 

The  Due  de  Luynes,  the  husband  of  the  lady 
who  made  the  first  curtsy,  was  a  very  favourable 

3" 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

specimen  of  a  French  aristocrat  of  his  time.  He 
wrote  his  memoirs  in  seventeen  vokimeS;  and  of 
those  seventeen  vohimes  the  above  quotation  is  a 
fair  sample.  Upright  and  honourable,  not  wanting 
in  sense,  he  was  a  courtier  and  shared  the  limita- 
tions of  interest  of  the  Court  party.  If  the  reader 
will  immerse  himself  for  an  hour  or  two  in  these 
memoirs  of  the  Due  de  Luynes,  he  will  find 
that,  as  the  details  of  an  interminable  etiquette 
are  described  and  dissected,  the  solemn  and  un* 
questioning  seriousness  of  the  treatment  will 
gradually  have  its  effect  upon  him.  Court  cere- 
mony and  Court  gossip  will  envelop  him.  He 
will  find  himself  accepting  as  matter  of  deadly 
interest  the  most  petty  jealousies  and  intrigues, 
scandals  and  whisperings,  sarcasms  and  effronteries, 
machinations  and  plots  of  mistresses  and  favourites, 
and  all  the  thousand  trifles  which  compose  the 
tissue  of  this  effete  and  bloodless  existence.  And 
as  the  unreal  becomes  real,  the  real  will  become 
unreal.  He  will  hear  the  voices,  speaking  the 
thoughts  that  are  soon  to  be  put  into  terrible 
actions,  die  away  into  an  unmeaning  murmur. 
Never  is  the  serenity  of  this  "beautiful  Armida- 
Palace,"  to  use  one  of  Carlyle's  phrases,  *' where 
the  inmates  live  enchanted  lives,"  broken  by  any 
sound  from  the  outer  world.  A  faint  and  faraway 
note,  with  little  meaning  left  in  it,  occasionally 
penetrates,  and  our  good  duke  raises  his  head  to 
catch  the  unusual  sounds.  '^  On  dit  que  les  esprits 
s'echauffent,"  he  mutters,  vaguely  troubled,  to  him- 
self. And  again,  "Les  esprils  sont  encore  bien 
61oign^s  de  la  soumission  que   le  roi   demanded' 

312 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 

And  yet  again,  more  puzzled  than  ever,  *'  la  conduile 
du  Parlement  devient  plus  singuliere  de  jour  en 
jour."  Then  back  we  go  to  the  serious  business  of 
life,  to  the  number  of  horses  Madame  de  la  Tour- 
nelle  is  to  be  allowed  to  drive  in  her  carriage,  or 
the  varieties  of  the  royal  meals  and  the  distinction 
between  pot  royal,  petit  pot  royal,  and  grand  pot 
royal. 

The  severance  of  a  section  of  society  from  the 
mind  and  purpose  of  its  age  is,  in  the  case  of  France, 
particularly  serious ;  for  it  is  by  her  hold  on  ideas 
that  France  supports  herself.  That  the  English 
aristocracy  of  the  Georgian  reign  was  inaccessible 
to  ideas  did  not  greatly  matter,  since,  the  English 
genius  being  practical,  the  hold  of  our  aristocracy 
on  the  national  life  has  always  consisted  in  the 
active  part  played  by  it  in  party  politics  and  the 
government  of  the  country.  The  French  aristocracy 
had  long  lost  any  such  hold  as  that ;  but  another 
hold,  the  participation  in  ideas,  still  remained 
possible  for  it,  and  constituted  its  last  chance  of 
salvation.  It  was  not  taken.  The  dilettante  interest 
in  the  new  philosophy  which  titillated  the  curiosity 
of  French  society  stopped  far  short  of  active  parti- 
cipation. The  reality  of  that  interest  was  tested  by 
the  Turgot  Administration.  Himself  perhaps  the 
greatest  example  living  of  that  spirit  at  once  philoso- 
phical and  practical  which  animated  the  thought  of 
the  age,  Turgot,  as  a  desperate  remedy,  was  made 
Minister  of  Finance  in  1774,  and  the  only  really 
sincere  and  heartfelt  utterance  of  the  Court  on 
record  is  the  storm  of  protest  with  which  it  met  his 
suggestion  that  it  should  abandon  the  separate  and 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
artificial  system  of  life  and  shoulder  the  common 
bmden  of  the  economic  crisis. 

That  protesting  storm  and  the  dismissal  of  Tiirgot 
which  followed  it  signified  the  rejection  by  Ver- 
sailles of  the  ideas  of  the  age,  and  is  another 
remarkable  proof  of  the  impossibiHty  of  getting 
a  thoroughly  artificial  class  to  face  reality.  For  all 
Taine's  deceptive  industry  it  is  clear  that  the  new 
philosophy,  the  philanthropic  craze,  the  return  to 
nature,  were  never  more  to  the  Court  party  than 
toys  and  poses.  Into  the  confines  of  the  enchanted 
circle  the  advice  and  warning  of  Turgot  and  the 
reasoning  of  Diderot  and  Voltaire  came  with  the 
same  dull  and  unmeaning  sound  as  the  booming 
of  the  Rosbach  cannon.  The  impression  left  upon 
one's  mind  at  last  is  a  sense  of  separation  amount- 
ing to  total  severance  between  Court  life  and  real 
life.  That  severance  from  reality  we  distinguish  as 
the  note  of  the  Versailles  section  of  the  community, 
and  we  shall  surely  be  not  far  wrong  if  we  discern 
in  this  the  necessity  and  justification  of  the  oncoming 
Revolution.  The  law  of  nature  is  inevitable  that 
the  thing  cut  off  from  use  is  cut  off  from  life.  A 
class  whose  splendour  and  luxury  are  the  decoration 
on  solid  services  performed  may  be  yet  secure. 
But  a  class  whose  splendour  and  luxury  are  their 
own  sole  justification  and  aim  in  life  is  heading 
dead  for  the  guillotine. 

Perhaps  the  reader  will  smile  if,  turning  from 
these  great  affairs  of  state  once  more  to  the  Hert- 
ford House  galleries,  I  suggest  that  the  spirit  we 
have  been  observing  in  matters  of  government  is 
the  spirit  which  reigns  among  these   tables   and 

3H 


THE  ART  OF  AN  ARISTOCRACY 
cabinets.  And  yet,  for  those  quick  at  seizing  the 
character  and  significance  of  such  things,  I  doubt 
if  there  exists  in  history,  literature,  or  anything  else, 
any  such  effective  help  towards  a  complete  realisa- 
tion of  the  French  Court  and  society  as  is  provided 
by  an  exhibition  like  the  Wallace  Collection.  Let 
the  student  who  would  really  appreciate  the  causes 
of  the  Revolution  leave  for  an  afternoon  his  journals 
and  memoirs,  and,  instead  of  building  up  laboriously 
an  intellectual  conception  of  those  causes,  lay  him- 
self open  here  to  an  aesthetic  conception  of  them. 
Let  him  note  the  agreement  and  unanimity  of  all 
that  he  sees  in  these  rooms,  and  then  go  on  to  seek 
the  reason  of  this  unanimity  in  the  common  mean- 
ing and  intention  which  all  these  things  share.  Let 
him  ask  if  this  meaning  does  not  consist  in  the 
essentially  decorative  purpose  of  every  object  pre- 
sent, in  the  fact  that  they  one  and  all  strain  after 
show  and  splendour,  and  turn  their  backs  on  reality 
and  the  uses  of  everyday  life.  *  Is  it  possible  to 
conceive  a  better  expression  of  that  spirit  which  the 
aristocrats  of  France,  shorn  of  their  civic  duties 
and  feudal  responsibilities,  brought  to  Versailles, 
with  which  they  inoculated  the  ruling  principle, 
and  which,  from  that  hour  on,  marks  every  act  not 
of  society  only  but  of  the  government  ?  Hence- 
forth take  any  transaction  you  like,  private  or  public, 
and  the  spirit  animating  them  will  be  the  same. 
Always  the  enthusiasm  displayed  is  for  the  unreali- 
ties at  the  expense  of  the  realities  of  life.  Children 
are  turned  into  toys,  marriage  is  broken  up  by  fugi- 
tive intrigues,  the  colonies  are  abandoned  in  favour 
of  an  Austrian  Alliance,  endless  discourses  on  Court 

315 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
punctilio  occupy  men's  minds  to  the  cxclasion  of 
the  burning  thoughts  that  are  spurring  France  on  to 
deeds.  On  all  sides  and  under  all  circumstances  the 
Court  and  the  Court  party,  with  an  infallible  instinct, 
select  the  unreal  and  forsake  the  real.  Their  genuine 
preoccupations,  those  into  which  they  throw  their 
serious  effort,  are  purely  frivolous.  To  eclipse  the 
last  mad  freak  by  one  still  madder,  at  all  costs  so  to 
sparkle  as  to  make  jaded  fashion  stare,  these  are  the 
things  worth  living  for.  In  every  crisis  the  test  we 
learnt  in  the  Hertford  House  galleries,  "a  decorative 
rather  than  a  useful  purpose,"  applies  to  the  conduct 
of  society  and  the  government. 
^  These  are,  it  seems  to  me,  considerations  which 
should  be  borne  in  mind  by  lovers  of  this  furniture. 
They  endue  it  with  additional  interest.  Of  its  many 
other  attractions  there  is  the  less  need  to  speak, 
since  these  are  nowadays  appreciated  at  even  more 
perhaps  than  their  legitimate  value.  But  its  his- 
torical interest  has  been  unaccountably  neglected, 
and  of  the  large  number  of  people  to  whose 
sympathies  it  appeals  so  forcibly  and  who  admire 
it  so  enthusiastically,  few,  probably,  see  in  it  a 
representation  of  the  spirit  which  for  fifty  years 
dominated  the  French  Government  and  the  French 
aristocracy,  and  which  led  up  finally  to  the  catas- 
trophe of  1789. 


316 


SUMMARY 

IN  a  concluding  page  or  two  I  would  ask  the  reader 
to  cast  an  eye  back  on  the  ground  we  have  traversed 
and  consider  what  kind  of  significance  and  value  we 
have  found  in  art j  We  have  surveyed  the  Egyptian 
people  and  their  ancient  immovable  civilisation.  We 
have  perceived  in  them  a  race  mentally  archaic,  that 
is  to  say,  a  race  not  inspired  and  goaded  forward  on 
the  path  of  progress  by  intellectual  curiosity  but 
fixed  in  a  smooth-worn  rut  of  usage  and  mechanical 
routine,  having  some  relation,  it  would  seem,  to  the 
physical  conformation  of  the  country  and  circum- 
stances in  which  they  lived.  In  Egyptian  art  we 
have  seen  a  replica  or  image,  as  it  were,  of  this 
mental  condition.  The  sausage-shaped  columns  of 
Egyptian  temples  and  the  squat  and  shapeless 
entablatures,  so  blind  to  all  structural  purpose,  so 
intellectually  unconscious  of  their  relation  and 
proportion  to  each  other,  have  seemed  the  mere 
expression  of  the  state  of  intellectual  insensibility  in 
which  they  were  conceived.  And  so  too  the  conven- 
tionally sculptured  figures,  unreal  and  insensible 
of  the  ideas  and  emotions  expressible  through  the 
human  form,  were  equally  significant  of  a  state  of 
being  in  which  the  power  of  conscious  observation 
and  analysis  was  altogether  dormant.     Here  was  an 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
art  which  spoke  to  us  of  the  mental  condition  of  the 
Nile-dwelling  people  and  brought  that  condition 
home  to  us,  an  art,  in  short,  which  helped  us  to 
know  those  who  created  it. 

Then  we  turned  to  the  Greeks,  and  directly  we 
turned  to  them  we  realised  that  we  had  to  do  with  a 
people  who  were  intellectually  alive,  a  people  in 
whom  the  intellectual  faculty  had  become  sensitive 
and  awake.  We  saw  the  awakened  faculty  declaring 
itself  in  a  quite  new  vitality  and  flexibility  of  thought 
in  literature  and  philosophy  and  all  ideas  connected 
with  the  right  ordering  of  hfe  and  conduct.  The 
note  which  makes  all  intellectualised  races  kin  is 
first  struck  by  the  Greeks.  And  simultaneously  with 
this  we  saw  Greek  art  shaking  off  the  old  mechanical 
routine  and  gradually  animated  by  a  full  intellectual 
conception  of  its  functions.  We  saw  the  shapeless 
Egyptian  columns  realised  as  actual  columns  and  the 
stereotyped  Egyptian  figures  realised  as  actual 
figures,  each  with  all  the  possibilities  latent  in  it 
intellectually  developed.  Here  again  the  art  gave 
us  an  indication  of  the  genius  of  the  race  that  called 
it  forth  and  helped  us  to  know  the  race. 

And  when  we  went  on  to  consider,  in  the  case  of 
S.  Sophia,  the  Greek  treatment  of  Roman  principles 
of  construction,  this  knowledge  became  clearer  and 
more  vivid.  We  found  the  arch  and  lintel  prin- 
ciples, which  in  Roman  architecture  had  been  forced 
into  unwilling  combination,  separated  from  each 
other  and,  in  Justinian's  great  church,  as  full  and 
perfect  an  exposition  of  the  arch  principle  given  as 
in  earlier  days,  in  the  case  of  the  Doric  temple,  had 
been  given  of  the  lintel  principle.    Such  examples 

318 


SUMMARY 
must  familiarise  us  with  the  character  of  the  Greek 
genius  and  help  us  to  realise  its  function  and  the 
part  it  played  in  classic  thought.  We  have  added 
elements  to  thought  since  the  Greek  days,  but  still 
the  intellectual  lucidity  of  the  Greek  mind  has  the 
power  to  correct  and  instruct  the  intellectual  side  of 
our  own  nature.  This  intellectual  lucidity  was,  I 
suppose,  the  most  precious  thing  in  classical  life, 
and  its  power  and  influence,  when  manifested  in 
works  of  art,  touch  us  with  a  singular  intimacy. 
Greek  art,  I  repeat,  looked  at  in  this  way,  helps  us 
to  know  the  Greeks. 

And  again  when  we  passed  on  to  Arab  art  the 
same  kind  of  insight  was  accorded.  We  found 
ourselves  dealing,  in  the  Arabs,  with  a  people  of  an 
extraordinarily  strongly  marked  and  peculiar  tem- 
perament ;  a  people  ardent,  restless  and  volatile  as 
flame  ;  a  people  instinctively  impatient  of  steadfast- 
ness and  stability  in  all  its  forms.  The  broad  gap 
between  classical  civilisation  and  the  civilisation  of 
modern  Europe  is  occupied,  as  mist  occupies  a  valley, 
by  the  fantastic  exhalations  of  Arab  science  and  Arab 
philosophy  and  Arab  divinity.  And,  as  was  easy  to 
see,  all  these  manifestations  of  Arab  activity,  all  the 
thoughts  of  the  desert  race,  all  its  efforts  in  learn- 
ing, in  governing,  in  campaigning,  were  penetrated 
by  that  light,  whimsical  and  fiery  impulsiveness 
which,  to  those  who  know  the  Arab  in  his  native 
haunts,  seems  so  evidently  an  outcome  of  the  desert 
itself.  This  character,  so  impulsive,  yet  so  fickle 
and  unstable  in  all  its  impulses,  is  precisely  the 
character  given  back  to  us  by  the  whimsically  shaped 
arches,  the  ingeniously  tangled  designs  and  all  the 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
medley  of  fantastic  notions  and  experiments,  tossed 
together  in  the  flimsiest  manner  of  construction 
possible,  which  constitute  Arab  architecture.  An 
architecture  like  this  I  say,  as  we  get  to  understand 
its  point  of  view  and  enter  into  the  spirit  of  it,  helps 
us  likewise  to  understand  its  builders.  It  is  a  means 
given  to  us  to  know  the  Arab. 

Well  then,  leaving  the  Arab,  we  came  on  to  the 
style  of  the  Northern  nations ;  \  and  this,  too,  we 
looked  at  from  the  same  point  of  view,  the  point  of 
view  of  life.  We  glanced  back  into  history.  We 
realised  that  the  decrepitude  and  decay  of  the 
Roman  Empire  were  due  to  the  lack  of  human 
vitality  and  individual  initiative.  We  saw  those 
qualities  supplied  and  reinstilled  into  the  West  by 
the  Gothic  invaders.  We  recognised  this  as  the 
contribution  of  our  race  to  the  sum  total  of 
human  ideas.  In  due  course  we  saw  the  barbaric 
nations  forming  and  the  barbaric  communities  as- 
suming definite  shape.  We  looked  at  these  mediae- 
val societies  and  at  once  we  recognised  in  all  their 
institutions,  guilds,  corporate  rights  and  ideals  of 
citizenship  the  manifestations  and  working  out  of 
the  old  Gothic  leaven  of  liberty.  This  was  new  in 
society.  We  turned  to  art.  In  the  Gothic  minster 
the  spirit  of  democratic  freedom  and  initiative 
seemed  embodied  for  the  first  time.  The  very 
stone  seemed  animated.  Here  was  something  new 
in  art,  yet  how  graphic  of  the  life  of  the  age  !  The 
tall  battling  vaults  hold  the  spirit  of  seven  centuries 
of  racial  strife.  The  keen  spire  that  crowns  and 
stills  them  quivers  with  the  same  emotional  fervour 
as  the  great  crusading' pilgrimages  in  which  medi- 
320 


SUMMARY 
aeval  energy  found  its  safety-valvej  Down  in  the 
shadows  of  the  aisles  capital  and  corbel  are  carved 
with  illustrations  of  the  popular  life  of  the  day  : 
sowing  and  reaping  and  ploughing,  the  blacksmith's 
craft  and  the  carpenter's  and  the  mason's,  the  fears, 
the  superstitions,  the  fancies  beautiful  or  grotesque 
that  had  caught  the  popular  ear.  All  these  are  the 
themes  and  motives  which  animate  the  new  style  of 
building.  Let  the  reader  accept  the  clue.  What  is 
it  that  signalises  this  architecture  as  unique  among 
the  styles  of  the  world  ?  Its  spirit  of  democratic 
energy,  the  tide  of  human  vitality  that  runs  through 
it.  Turn  to  the  race  that  built  it  and  ask  the  same 
question  :  what  is  it  that  signalises  that  race  among 
the  races  of  the  world  ?  And  the  answer  comes  back 
in  the  same  words  again — its  spirit  of  democratic 
energy  and  the  human  vitality  which  animate  it. 
Can  any  one  fail  to  feel  the  insight  into  human 
character  afforded  by  an  art  like  this  ? 

We  came  to  the  Renaissance,  to  the  age  of  in- 
tellect's awakening.  In  human  society,  in  Italy 
first,  then  spreading  over  Europe,  we  recognised 
the  intellectual  influence  ;  we  recognised  its  temper, 
its  spirit  of  calmness,  its  disinterested  and  wide 
survey.  This  was  lacking  in  mediaeval  society. 
But  it  was  not  lacking  in  classical  society ;  no,  it 
was  the  thing  of  chiefest  value  in  that  society,  the 
note  which  distinguishes  classic  thought.  Mere 
was  the  inward,  mental  bond  between  the  modern 
Renaissance  and  Rome  and  Athens.  And  how  was 
it  in  art  ?  The  old  classical  architecture  had 
developed  and  preserved  one  thing  of  value,  the 
sense  of  spaciousness  and  aerial  amplitude  which 

X  321 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
belong  to  horizontal  expansion.  That  had  quite 
gone  out  of  fashion  in  mediaeval  architecture.  The 
Gothic  point  has  no  knowledge  of  the  quality  of 
breadth  any  more  than  Gothic  society  has  know- 
ledge of  the  intellectual  temper  and  survey.  But 
with  Renaissance  art  the  old  quality  comes  back. 
Breadth  is  once  more  esteemed  ;  spaciousness  again 
takes  rank  as  an  aesthetic  motive.  Why  ?  Be- 
cause that  force  is  once  more  active  in  life  which 
^X^  thus  voices  itself  into  art.  Because  intellectualism 
with  its  calm  and  luminous  outlook  always  will 
clothe  itself  in  an  amply  proportioned  art  and  make 
itself  a  home  in  an  architecture  of  horizontal  ex- 
pansion. This  is  intellect's  perpetual  endeavour ; 
and  who,  feeling  the  natural  afBnity  which  exists 
between  intellect  in  man  and  breadth  in  architec- 
ture, can  watch  and  follow  throughout  Europe  the 
change  from  vertical  to  horizontal  without  feeling 
that  a  light  is  being  thrown  for  him  on  the  mental 
changes  that  are  going  on  that  it  is  these  changes 
which  the  changes  in  style  portray,  and  that,  here 
again,  art  is  fulfilling  its  function  of  an  interpreter 
of  human  thought  and  character  ? 
Then  with  sculpture.  What  is  it  that  prevents 
"  Renaissance  society  from  being  really  and  serenely 
classical,  from  being  secure  and  content  in  the 
sphere  of  intellectualism  ?  The  Western  mind  has 
received  into  itself  the  spiritual  idea,  and  its  own 
spiritual  faculties  have  been  quickened  and  stimu- 
lated by  the  appeal.  It  can  never  again  retrieve 
the  old  classical  standpoint.  It  can  never  be 
satisfied  again  with  a  merely  human  ideal,  nor  ever 
succeed  again  in  hmiting  man's  thoughts  and 
322 


SUMMARY 
aspirations  within  the  definable  bounds  of  the 
understanding.  There  is  a  seething  spiritual  dis- 
content underlying  the  Renaissance,  and  spiritual 
whisperings  and  admonitions  distract  its  intellectual 
calm.  What  could  this  do  but  come  out  in  the 
art  of  the  period  ?  Once  before  the  same  thing 
had  happened.  Classical  thought  in  its  later  stages 
had  been  impregnated  with  spiritual  ideas,  and 
immediately,  as  thought  passed  from  the  definable 
to  the  indefinable  plane,  the  sculptured  creations 
of  the  artist  exhibited  the  transition  in  their  own 
inarticulate  struggles  and  half-vain  efforts  at  ex- 
pression. The  Renaissance  revealed  in  life  the 
combination  of  the  same  conflicting  motives — the 
intellectualism  that  had  revived  and  the  spiritualism 
that  would  not  be  quenched ;  and  immediately  in 
art  the  same  symptoms  reappear  and  the  inexpres- 
sible emotions  in  the  marble  betray  the  conflict 
that  is  going  on  in  the  minds  of  men.  Who  that 
inclines  to  summarise  the  Renaissance  as  the  age 
of  Reason  and  have  done  with  it,  can  enter  into 
the  testimony  thus  afforded  by  art  without  feeling 
his  consciousness  of  that  age  deepen  and  expand  ? 
Hidden  motives  come  to  light,  spiritual  depths  are 
revealed,  a  combat  betwixt  inward  and  outward  is 
visibly  depicted.  There  dawns  upon  his  mind  a 
different,  a  completer  conception  of  the  spirit  of 
those  centuries,  and  history  itself  and  the  types  and 
characters  and  acts  of  men  take  on  a  new  significance 
and  render  up  a  fuller  meaning.  Such  are  the  con- 
sequences of  accepting  art  as  an  expression  of  life. 

And  then,  from  the  brief  glance  we  took  at  the 
course  and    development    of   painting,  the    same 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 
results  were  forthcoming.  The  intellectual  awaken- 
ing of  the  Renaissance  was,  in  life,  gradual.  It 
began,  as  always,  in  the  study  of  man  himself — 
the  discovery  of  man  by  man  as  it  has  been  called — 
and  it  extended  gradually  into  all  the  departments  of 
science  and  a  zealous  analysis  of  all  the  phenomena 
of  nature.  Art  followed  the  same  course.  The 
domains  which  intellect  conquered  were  yielded 
successively  to  art.  Would  the  reader  realise  what 
the  nature  and  feeling  of  the  intellectual  awakening 
was  like  ?  Let  him  stand  before  some  half-way 
Renaissance  picture  and  observe  what  things  have 
come  under  intellect's  survey  and  what  have  not* 
Some  zones  are  still  wrapped  in  obscurity  ;  others 
are  fully  illuminated.  To  the  end  the  wild  haunts 
of  nature  maintain  a  degree  of  inaccessibility  and 
remain  unpaintable  ;  and  indeed,  as  we  often  say, 
it  is  only  quite  lately  that  the  wild  and  rugged  kinds 
of  scenery  have  come  to  possess  any  attraction  for 
man,  these  being  the  most  remote  of  all  from  human 
sympathy.  Perhaps  the  effort  at  comprehension 
which  art  always  makes  of  us  is  harder  in  this 
instance  than  in  the  others  I  have  attempted.  I 
believe  we  have  next  to  no  idea  what  seeing  with 
the  brain,  or  intellectual  realisation,  really  means, 
or  in  the  least  appreciate  the  difference  between 
that  and  the  mere  physical  act  of  seeing.  We 
would  admit  that  a  cow's  vision  of  a  landscape 
is  not  our  vision.  Yet  the  difference  is  not  in  the 
seeing.  The  image  of  the  landscape  on  the  retina 
of  the  cow's  eye  is,  I  imagine,  the  same  as  our 
own,  but  its  elements  are  not  distinguishable  to 
the  cow  because  they  are  not  mentally  appreciated. 

3H 


SUMMARY 

In  the  same  way  primitive  races  and  savages  often 
do  not  distinguish  at  all  differences  in  things  which 
do  not  immediately  concern  them.  Never  having 
taken  a  mental  interest  in  such  things,  the  signifi- 
cance of  their  shape,  or  even  that  they  have  a 
distinctive  shape,  has  never  struck  them.  That 
realisation,  when  it  comes,  imparts  to  the  mind  a 
sensation  of  delight,  for  it  is  more  than  the  recogni- 
tion of  an  outward  phenomenon  ;  it  is  a  discovery 
by  the  mind  of  a  faculty  of  its  own.  The  Renais- 
sance is  full  of  this  delight  of  the  mind  in  putting 
forth  its  own  power  of  recognition.  We  feel  that 
delight  in  the  life  of  the  age,  in  the  kind  of  breathless 
expectation  which  hovers  over  society,  in  the  keen 
mental  excitement  which  prevails.  Yet  how  hard 
to  realise  the  feelings  that  prevailed.  What  gives 
the  excitement,  the  expectation  is  precisely  the  fact 
that  things  are  undergoing  before  men's  very  eyes  a 
metamorphosis.  What  we  want  is  some  kind  of 
evidence  that  shall  catch  the  metamorphosis  half 
way.  The  reader  has  seen  in  picture-cleaners'  shops 
canvases  half  black  and  obscured,  half  clean  and 
clearly  defined.  The  visible  universe  in  the  age  of 
the  Renaissance  is  making  this  change  from  obscure 
to  clear  before  men's  eyes.  In  Italian  painting  we 
have  as  nearly  the  evidence  we  want  as  it  is  possible 
to  get  it.  We  have  the  unrealised,  obscure  side  of 
nature  given  in  all  its  dull  opaqueness  and  the 
realised  side  given  in  all  its  clearness,  while  passing 
from  canvas  to  canvas  we  see  the  vision  extending 
and  one  thing  after  another  coming  out  of  darkness 
into  light,  thereby  giving  us  an  actual  representation 
of  the  very  process  which  was  the  inspiration  of  the 

325 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

Renaissance.  What  other  instance,  I  ask,  can  do 
this  as  art  can  do  it,  or  aid  us  as  art  can  aid  us  to  a 
comprehension  of  the  mind  of  that  epoch  ? 

Finally  we  came  down  to  a  time  comparatively 
recent  and  cast  a  glance  at  the  French  life  and  art 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  I  need  not  here  recapi- 
tulate those  reasons  and  arguments  which  led  us  to 
recognise  in  the  art  of  the  age  an  image  of  existing 
society  and,  as  it  were,  a  commentary  on  the  con- 
ditions which  were  sweeping  France  onward  to  the 
rocks  of  the  Revolution.  My  object  in  this  brief 
recapitulation  is  to  leave  the  reader,  if  I  can,  with  a 
clear  impression  on  his  mind  of  the  point  of  view  from 
which  we  have  been  considering  art,  or  rather  of  the 
purpose  and  use  to  which  we  have  been  endeavour- 
ing to  put  it.  The  proper  study  of  mankind  is 
man,  says  Pope.  Certainly  of  all  earthly  studies  it  is 
the  most  engrossing  and  permanently  interesting. 
The  wish  of  every  historian  is  to  make  real  to  our 
mind's  eye  past  generations.  The  secret  hope, 
whether  we  know  it  or  not,  which  drives  us  to 
histories  and  all  memoirs  and  old  records  of  the 
past,  is  the  hope  of  getting  a  little  closer  in  sympathy 
and  understanding  to  those  vanished  ones,  who  yet, 
we  blindly  feel,  have  a  share  in  us  to  this  day ;  so 
that  in  seeking  to  know  them  it  is  after  self-know- 
ledge, perhaps,[that  we  are  groping. 

Such  is  the  strong  appeal  of  the  past,  and  it  is  in 
this  connection  that  I  want  the  reader  to  think  of 
the  view  of  art  I  have  been  suggesting.  How  are 
we  to  obtain  the  desired  knowledge  ?  Usually  only 
the  help  of  literature  is  invoked.  We  can  read 
histories,  or  we  can  read  romances.  The  objection 
326 


SUMMARY 

to  the  first  is  that  what  we  get  are  not  real  men 
and  women,  but  only  evidence  to  the  effect  that 
certain  men  and  w^omen  acted  in  a  certain  way. 
The  objection  to  the  second  is  that  while  real  men 
and  women  are  represented,  their  reality  is  no  proof 
that  they  ever  existed.  The  reality  of  Bois  Guilbert 
and  Front  de  Boeuf  in  Scott's  pages  is  no  proof  that 
they  ever  existed  as  Norman  barons.  In  short, 
what  the  historians  give  us  of  the  past  is  usually  the 
truth  with  very  little  life  in  it,  and  what  the 
romancers  give  us  is  usually  the  life  with  very  little 
truth  in  it. 

But  art's  testimony  is  both  living  and  true.  How 
living  it  is  those  who  have  thought  themselves 
into  the  forms  of  Egyptian  and  Greek  art,  or  have 
felt  in  their  own  blood  the  excitement  of  the  Arab 
attack  on  ancient  structural  features,  or  lived 
through,  in  art,  any  of  its  great  crises  and  trans- 
formations, can  best  tell.  The  forms  of  art  are 
wrought  out  of  the  living  spirit  of  their  age.  And 
they  are  true,  they  are  to  be  trusted.  It  is  no 
question,  in  their  case,  of  one  man's  thoughts,  or 
one  man's  imagination.  Art  in  its  great  creative 
phases  is  an  utterance,  an  embodiment,  of  the 
ruling  thought  and  prevalent  conviction  of  that 
age.  It  is  an  expression  of  life  registered  at  the 
moment  when  life  is  most  capable  of  articulate  utter- 
ance. This  is  what  I  want  the  reader  to  feel ;  this 
is  what  I  would  attempt  to  indicate  to  him.  To 
be  one  with  our  kind  is  a  human  instinct  best  realised 
through  the  study  of  art,  for  it  is  through  the 
study  of  art  that  we  enter  into  the  thoughts  of  man- 
kinds 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

IN  the  following  notes  I  have  endeavoured  to  pick 
out  from  the  multitude  of  books  on  art  a  few  of 
those  likely  to  be  most  useful  to  amateurs.  Let  me 
venture  to  warn  all  such,  to  begin  with,  against  the 
prevailing  supposition  that  the  last  word  in  art  is 
necessarily  the  best  word.  Modern  art  criticism  is 
as  vague  and  uncertain  in  its  theories  as  modern 
art  is  vague  and  uncertain  in  its  aims.  The  art 
criticism  of  a  generation  ago  was,  as  I  believe  any 
disinterested  reader  will  discover,  stronger,  more 
consistent,  and  richer  in  ideas  than  the  art  criticism 
of  to-day, 

CHAPTER  I 

The  works  of  Professor  Flinders  Petrie,  Sir  Gaston 
Maspero  and  Professor  Wallis  Budge  are  exhaustive 
both  as  regards  Egyptian  history  and  Egyptian  art. 
Their  historical  records  of  matters  of  fact  justify  the 
opinion  of  the  Nile  civilisation  expressed  in  the 
present  chapters.  Their  estimate  of  Egyptian  art 
is  usually  high,  especially  in  the  case  of  Professor 
Flinders  Petrie,  who  seems  to  regard  it  as  superior 
in  certain  vital  respects  to  any  which  has  since  been 
created.  The  object  he  ascribes  to  that  art,  how- 
ever, namely,  the  dignifying  of  man  by  an  exhibition 
of  a  power  and  scale  of  work  superior  to  Nature's, 
manifested  in  structures  which  should  eclipse  the 
hills  in  size  and  solidity,  seems  questionable  as  an 
aesthetic  motive.      Sir    Gaston    Maspero,    in    his 

328 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Contes  Populaires/'  maintains,  in  opposition  to 
Mr.  Hogarth,  that  the  Egyptians  were  by  no  means 
a  sedentary  and  home-abiding  people.  The  excep- 
tions he  mentions  would  obviously  be  drawn  from 
the  wealthy  classes  rather  than  the  masses. 

I  must  particularly  mention  the  "  Life  in  Ancient 
Egypt "  of  Herr  Erman,  translated  by  Helen  Mary 
Tirard.  It  is  written  with  a  broad  common  sense 
and  breadth  of  judgment,  which  are  the  very 
qualities  most  to  be  desired  in  treating  the 
subject.  "  Egypt  and  Western  Asia  in  the  light  of 
Modern  Discoveries  "  by  Messrs.  King  and  Hall,  and 
"  The  Religions  of  Ancient  Egypt  and  Babylonia  " 
by  A.  H.  Sayce,  may  both,  more  particularly  the 
latter,  be  read  with  advantage.  1  would  add  to 
these  "The  Nearer  East"  by  D.  G.  Hogarth.  An 
excellent  work  on  Mesopotamia  and  the  methods  of 
its  ancient  irrigation  is  "  The  Land  of  the  Eastern 
Caliphate  "  by  G.  Le  Strange. 

M.  Choisy  in  his  "  Histoire  de  TArchitecture " 
describes  the  rules  of  proportion  which  he  believes 
were  practised  by  Egyptian  architects.  I  would 
refer  the  reader  to  the  same  author's  "  L'Art  de 
batir  chez  les  Egyptiens,"  where,  on  page  65,  he 
will  find  some  results  given  of  the  methods  of 
estimating  bulk  which  appear  to  have  contented 
them.  M.  Jean  Capart's  work  on  "  Les  Debuts  de 
I'Art  en  Egypte  "  is  particularly  suggestive  in  those 
parts  which  deal  with  the  evolution  of  geometrical 
designs  out  of  graphic  representation.  Among 
general  works  on  architecture  Fergusson  still  holds 
much  the  same  place  that  Gibbon  holds  among 
historians.  I  fear  I  cannot  cite  his  authority  in 
support  of  my  own  estimate  of  Egyptian  building. 
For  some,  to  me  quite  incomprehensible,  reason  he 
seems  to  think  that  even  the  diminished  base  which 
gives  its  peculiar  sausage  shape  to  the  Egyptian 
column  is  a  "graceful"  device.  Professor  Blom- 
field's  book  has  been  dealt  with  in  the  text.   Professor 

329 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

Russell  Sturgis  in  his  "  History  of  Architecture  " 
brings  out  clearly  the  fact  that  the  interior  of  the 
Great  Hall  at  Karnak  was  so  crowded  with  huge 
columns  that  no  view  giving  a  sense  of  the  general 
proportions  of  the  interior  was  ever  possible.  He 
appears  to  think  that  the  architecture  owed  its  chief 
effect  to  the  painting  and  sculpture  with  which  it 
was  decorated  and  to  the  heavy  chiaroscuro  in  which 
it  was  plunged.  Having  demonstrated  the  impossi- 
bility of  appreciating  pure  form  under  the  conditions 
that  prevailed,  he  concludes  that  the  Egyptians  "were 
as  much  interested  in  column  architecture  as  even 
the  Greeks  of  the  time  of  Pericles." 

Finally  I  must  mention  M.  Am61ineau's  '*  Essai 
sur  I'Evolution  Historique  and  Philosophique  des 
Id^es  Morales  dans  I'Egypte  Ancienne."  M.  Ame- 
lineau  lays  stress  on  the  rise  of  an  upper  or  landlord 
class  among  the  population  of  Egypt.  He,  however, 
admits  that  "  innumerable  proofs  "  remain  to  us  of 
the  primitive  superstition  which  "  demeura  vivante 
durant  tout  I'Empire  ^gyptien  et  qui  existe  encore 
aujourd'hui  parmi  les  plus  basses,  pour  ne  pas 
dire  dans  toutes  les  classes  de  la  population  de 
I'Egypte " ;  a  conclusion  which  agrees  with  that 
arrived  at  by  Sayce,  Hogarth  and  others.      » 

To  put  the  matter  in  a  nutshell,  the  question  the 
reader  will  have  to  ask  himself  is  this :  Can  he 
imagine  a  civilisation  great,  in  the  sense  of  enduring 
and  very  firmly  established,  but  not  great  in  the 
sense  of  being  far  advanced  intellectually  and 
spiritually  ?  Can  he  imagine  a  civilisation  not 
really  based  upon  or  nourished  by  the  intellectual 
faculty,  but  supported  by  the  strength  of  usage  and 
routine,  and  remaining  immovably  fixed  in  the 
archaic  phase  which  precedes  intellectual  develop- 
ment ?  I  do  not  see  why  such  a  '*  civilisation " 
should  not  exist  under  certain  circumstances,  and 
the  circumstances  of  the  Nile  valley  seem  precisely 
the  ones  fitted  to  it.    Any  way,  if  the  reader  admits 

330 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

the  idea  of  such  a  civilisation  and  reflects  on  the 
probable  aspect  of  its  life,  he  will,  I  think,  find  that 
what  we  know  of  the  life  of  the  Nile  Valley  tallies 
pretty  closely  with  such  a  conception.  He  will 
also,  I  believe,  find  that  Egyptian  art  readily 
advances  to  meet  such  a  life  and  interpret  it.) 

CHAPTER  H 

In  addition  to  the  books  mentioned  at  the  end  of 
the  last  chapter,  I  may  refer  the  reader  who  desires 
to  obtain  a  thorough  insight  into  the  action  and 
influence  of  the  Nile  to  Sir  W.  Willcocks'  ''The 
Nile  in  1904,"  H.  S.  Lynn's  *'  Physiography  of  the 
Nile  and  its  Basin,"  Monsieur  Palanque's  "  Le  Nil 
a'  I'Epoque  Pharaon,"  and  Sir  W.  Gaston's  "  Basin 
of  the  Upper  Nile,"  in  Parliamentary  Reports,  1904. 

CHAPTER  III 

I  commend  to  the  reader's  study  the  two  important 
Histories  of  Greek  Sculpture  by  Perrot  and  Chipiez 
and  by  A.  S.  Murray.  Also  Professor  E.  A. 
Gardner's  "Six  Greek  Sculptors"  and  "Religion 
and  Art  in  Ancient  Greece."  Professor  Lowy's 
"  Nature  in  Early  Greek  Art "  is  an  invaluable  and 
very  suggestive  little  work  on  the  origins  of  archaic 
art ;  and  Pater's  "  Beginnings  of  Greek  Sculpture  " 
contains  suggestions  of  value,  as  also  do  H.  B. 
Walters'  "  Greek  Art "  and  "  The  Art  of  the  Greeks." 

Professor  Butcher's  works  seem  to  me  to  give  a 
clearer  idea  of  the  Greek  ideal  in  matters  of  thought 
and  character  than  any  I  have  met  with,  but  I  may 
mention  also  Professor  Jebb's  essays.  Professor 
Evans'  Reports  on  the  excavation  of  the  Palace  of 
Knossos,  Professor  Myres'  catalogue  of  the  Cyprus 
Museum  and  Professor  Jevons'  "  History  of  Greek 
Architecture,"  "  Manual  of  Greek  Antiquities,"  and 
"  Idea  of  God  in  Early  Religion." 

^31 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

It  is  unnecessary  really  to  quote  authorities  foi 
this  chapter,  as  I  have  merely  touched  on  a  few 
points  which  are  matters  of  common  knowledge. 
The  case  would  have  been  different  had  I  en- 
deavoured to  trace  the  rise  and  early  steps  of  the 
Greek  genius  in  matters  of  thought  and  literature 
on  the  one  hand  and  in  art  on  the  other.  I  believe 
the  two  would  have  shown  in  all  their  stages  the 
correspondence  which  they  exhibit  in  their  later 
phases  of  development,  but  I  must  be  content  with 
suggesting  to  the  reader  the  identity  of  the  two 
processes.  A  book  to  be  read  with  care,  I  must 
add,  in  M.  Henri  Lechat's  *'  La  Sculpture  attique 
avant  Phidias." 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  reader  must  obtain  access  to  Penrose's 
'*  Measurements  of  the  Parthenon."  This  is  the 
only  English  work  I  know  of  which  sets  forth  with 
care  and  fullness  the  inflections  wrought  by  the 
Greeks  in  the  proportions  of  their  favourite  style. 
It  is  extraordinary  that  so  little  should  have  been 
made  since  of  these  invaluable  hints.  Fergusson  re- 
mains one  of  the  best  authorities  on  Greek  architec- 
ture. Choisy  devotes  himself  as  usual  to  an  elaborate 
description  and  illustration  of  the  details  of  con- 
struction. Mr.  Lethaby  has  a  good  account  of  the 
Parthenon  and  its  sculptors  in  his  "Greek  Build- 
ings," though  he  discusses  the  question  of  the 
variation  of  Greek  forms  in  a  way  which  seems  to 
show  that  the  question  is  not  one  which  has  very 
seriously  engaged  his  interest.  As  regards  the 
Greek  ethical  qualities,  as  signally  manifested  in 
Greek  art  as  in  Greek  philosophy,  my  advice  to 
the  general  reader  is  to  concentrate,  as  I  have  said, 
on  Professor  Butcher.  I  need  scarcely  point  out 
that  in  what  I  have  written  it  is  not  implied  that  the 
builders  of  the  Doric  temples  consciously  wrought 

332 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

their  temples  in  obedience  to  ethical  dictates.  They 
simply  built  no  doubt,  as  all  men  build,  in  their  own 
image  ;  that  which  appeared  fit  and  pleasing  to  them 
in  outward  form  being  the  image  of  their  own 
thought.  None  the  less  must  they  have  been  fortified 
and  sustained  by  the  contemplatation  of  forms 
dictated  by  the  ideas  they  most  valued.  This  is  the 
great  advantage  in  matters  of  art  which  the  Greek 
civilisation  has  possessed,  that  its  ethical  principles 
of  harmony,  unity  and  proportion  could  be  easily 
transferred  to  art.  The  transference  at  once  lent  a 
dignity  and  significance  to  art  which  it  has  never  since 
possessed.  There  are,  I  may  add,  many  interesting 
and  subtle  suggestions  in  M.  Boutmy's  ''Le  Par- 
thenon et  le  Genie  grec."  Professor  E.  A.  Gardner's 
"Ancient  Athens"  is  among  the  most  able  and  sym- 
pathetic of  the  more  exhaustive  works  on  the  subject. 
It  is,  however,  disappointing  in  this — that  the  author, 
having  mentioned  with  enthusiasm  the  discoveries 
of  Penrose  and  described  one  or  two  instances  of 
their  application,  seems  immediately  afterwards  to 
forget  their  existence,  and  leaves  a  topic  of  which 
he  has  barely  indicated  the  significance. 

An  interesting  book  which  I  did  not  see  till  my 
own  volume  was  in  the  hands  of  the  publisher,  is 
Mr.  Stoughton Holborn's  "Introduction  to  the  Archi- 
tectures of  European  Religions."  Mr.  Stoughton 
Holborn  combats  the  theory  that  the  inflections  of 
Greek  architectural  forms  were,  in  all  cases  at  any 
rate,  designed  to  correct  optical  illusions,  and  falls 
back  upon  the  principle  of  aesthetics  for  the  "  main 
reasons."  I  have  not  space  here  to  discuss  the 
question,  which  is  a  subtle  and  complicated  one. 
The  arguments  he  uses  have  often  formed  the 
subjects  of  my  own  thought,  and  I  believe  there  is 
much  truth  in  them.  What  I  would  here  point  out 
is  that  whatever  be  the  solution  of  these  curvatures, 
their  extreme  delicacy  is  equally  a  proof  of  the 
Greek  cultivation  of  the  power   of    vision.     Mr. 

333 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

Stoughton  Holborn  himself  notes  this.  "What- 
ever," he  says,  "be  the  interpretation  of  these 
subtleties,  one  inference  at  least  is  certain,  namely, 
the  refinement  of  the  Greek  eye." 

CHAPTER  V 

M.  Choisy's  "  L'Art  de  batir  chez  les  Romains " 
gives  the  author's  usual  minute  analysis  of  method. 
When  he  passes  from  matters  of  fact  to  matters  of 
theory,  his  conclusions  are  perhaps  in  some  degree 
questionable.  He  belongs  to  the  group  which  seeks 
the  solution  of  styles  in  conditions  of  labour  and 
the  material  used.  Rome's  massive  constructions 
are,  he  affirms,  the  natural  fruit  of  slave  labour,  and 
never  could,  owing  to  the  tremendous  weight  of  their 
masses  of  masonry,  have  been  erected  by  free  com- 
munities. "On  apergoit  sans  peine  les  raisons  qui 
nous  les  interdisent."  They  belong  "  aux  temps 
de  I'esclavage  et  des  corvees."  But  is  not  physical 
science  in  the  hands  of  free  men  a  more  power- 
ful instrument  in  the  wielding  of  material  than 
slavery  could  ever  have  been  ?  M.  Choisy  adds  that 
"les  m^thodes  romaines  ne  sont  possibles  qu'a 
un  grand  empire  dont  les  forces  sont  concentrees 
sous  un  gouvernement  absolu."  But  what  about 
the  miniature  Greek  states  of  Sicily  which  mani- 
pulated masonry  on  a  far  more  tremendous  scale 
than  any  the  Romans  ever  used  ?  The  process  of 
seeking  explanations  in  external  facts  always  lands 
one  in  difficulties. 

M.  Gabriel  Millet's  work  on  "  Le  Monastere  de 
Daphn6  "  is  an  exhaustive  treatise  on  a  particular 
example  of  the  Byzantine  style,  and  "  The  Monas- 
tery of  St.  Luke  of  Stiris  "  by  Messrs.  Schultz  and 
Barnsley  is  another  work  of  the  same  kind.  I 
heartily  wish  that  the  writers  of  both  these  volumes 
had  given  a  little  more  attention  to  the  scheme  of 
lighting  of  the  two  buildings  and  the  effects  of 

334 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

chiaroscuro  in  relation  to  the  use  of  colour.  Some 
of  the  photographs  of  the  latter  church  are  in  this 
respect  most  interesting,  revealing  as  they  do  those 
rich  effects  of  twilight  which  are  inseparable  from 
the  purpose  of  Byzantine  art.  I  cannot  resist  quot- 
ing from  MM.  Gayet  and  Errard's  ^'L'Art  Byzantine" 
the  following  description  of  the  emotions  which 
the  soul  of  an  onlooker  feels  beneath  the  domes  of 
St.  Mark's  :  '•  Un  calme  contemplatif  en  descend 
vers  elle,  une  s6r6nit6  douce,  mystique,  famili^re  a 
rOrient."  It  is  the  keynote  of  the  interior,  M. 
Charles  Diehl's  "  Justinien  et  la  civilisation  Byzan- 
tine" has  the  signal  recommendation  that  it  deals 
with  an  architectural  style  in  conjunction  with  the 
circumstances  out  of  which  it  arose.  M.  Bayet's 
"  L'Art  Byzantine  "  may  be  read  with  advantage ; 
but  the  best  description  of  the  church  of  St.  Sophia 
I  have  come  across  is  that  by  Messrs.  W.  R,  Lethaby 
and  Harold  Swainson.  Fergusson  on  this  building 
is  also  particularly  good,  and  I  commend  to  the 
reader's  attention  his  remarks  on  its  logical  develop- 
ment of  the  arch  principle  and  superiority  in  this 
respect  over  our  mediaeval  cathedrals. 

CHAPTER  VI 

The  most  important  qualification  for  a  right 
understanding  of  Arab  art  is  an  insight  into  the 
Arab  national  character.  Best  and  most  helpful  of 
all  books  in  this  respect  is  Doughty's  ''Travels  in 
Arabia  Deserta."  Burckhardt's  "  Notes  on  Bedouins 
and  Wahabys  "  and  '^  Travels  in  Arabia  "  ;  Burton's 
"  Pilgrimage  to  Meccah  "  and  Lady  Anne  Blunt's 
"  Pilgrimage  to  Nejd  "  may  be  read  in  the  same 
connection."  Be  sure  also  and  read  "  Le  Sahara  " 
by  Henri  Schirmer.  As  regards  the  architecture  of 
the  race -Fergusson's  chapters  on  the  various  styles 
of  Syria,  Egypt,  Persia,  India,  Spain,  and  Turkey 
constitute  the  most  moderate  and  rational  descrip- 

335 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

tion  known  to  me.  M.  Choisy  in  his  **  fi istoire 
de  1' Architecture  "  analyses  the  style  in  his  usual 
remorseless  fashion.  He  refers  the  reader  to  the 
collection  of  Arab  geometrical  designs  by  M.  Bour- 
goin,  consisting  of  the  usual  geometrical  figures 
interwoven  with  a  deadly  mechanical  persistence 
which  has  the  effect  of  drops  of  water  falling  one 
by  one  upon  the  brain.  Nothing  more  destitute  of 
any  kind  of  intelligence  or  animation  can  be 
conceived,  and  the  ingenuity  that  can  satisfy 
itself  with  the  reiteration  of  these  shallow  tricks 
seems  like  a  confession  of  intellectual  impotence. 
Choisy,  departing  from  the  examination  of  form, 
hazards,  by-the-by,  one  very  remarkable  observation 
on  Arab  art.  After  telling  us  that  the  countries  in 
which  the  Arab  style  had  its  birth  were  those  in 
which  Byzantine  had  not  struck  deep  roots,  he 
proceeds,  ^'au  lieu  d'accepter  les  proc^d^s  byzan- 
tins,  I'art  musulman  remonte  a  la  source  d'ou  ces 
proced^s  sont  issus,  et  en  s'inspirant  des  principes 
qui  avaient  domine  I'architecture  de  Constantinople, 
il  arrive  a  des  combinaisons,  a  des  formes  entiere- 
ment  etrangeres  a  I'Empire  Grec."  I  fancy  that 
those  who  have  followed  the  beginning  of  Arab  art 
in  Cairo  and  North  Africa,  and  who  recall  the 
flimsy  material  and  childishly  weak  and  vague 
designs  of  a  style  obviously  uncertain  of  its  own 
purpose,  will  wonder  at  the  claim  here  made,  and 
ask  whether  it  really  could  have  been  the  case  that 
these  earliest  Arab  builders  could  have  divined  in 
the  works  they  saw  around  them  an  ulterior  source 
of  inspiration  and  deliberately  worked  back  to  the 
principles  of  an  earlier  art  in  order  to  evolve  results 
of  their  own.  I  have  had  a  great  many  books  on 
Arab  architecture  through  my  hands  of  late  years  in 
my  capacity  as  reviewer,  but  as  they  invariably  deal 
with  their  subject  from  the  emotional  and  romantic 
point  of  view  I  shall  not  introduce  them  more 
particularly  to  the  reader. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


CHAPTER  VII 

There  are  such  a  multitude  of  books  dealing  with 
Gothic  architecture  that  it  is  difficult  to  make  a 
selection.  Let  me  advise  the  amateur  in  this  matter 
not  to  be  put  off  studying  his  Ruskin.  It  matters  very 
little  to  what  extent  Ruskin  was  right  or  wrong  in 
his  conclusions  ;  what  does  matter  is  that  he  viewed 
his  subject  from  the  right  standpoint.  Architecture 
to  him  was  human  expression,  the  expression  of  the 
emotions  and  aspirations  of  its  builders.  Instead  of 
looking  to  brick  and  stone  for  the  source  of  the 
motives  of  a  style  he  looked  to  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  men,  and  roughly  speaking  he  is  about  as  much 
richer  in  intellectual  and  emotional  matter  than  the 
professional  writer,  as  hearts  and  minds  are  richer 
than  bricks  and  stones.  Though  you  discard  every 
one  of  his  doctrines,  yet  in  forcing  you  to  look  at 
architecture  as  a  human  product  he  will  deserve 
more  of  you  than  all  other  writers  on  the  subject  put 
together.  Fergusson  is  sane  and  moderate  and 
thorough.  Mr.  Lethaby's  "Mediaeval  Art'*  is  a 
thoughtful,  very  readable  work.  The  author  is  in 
sympathy  with  his  subject.  His  account  of  the 
transition  from  Romanesque  to  Gothic  vaulting  is 
clear  and  full.  Mr.  Jackson  in  his  "  Reason  in 
Architecture"  treats  the  same  interesting  question 
with  equal  care.  In  a  chapter  entitled  "  Relation  of 
Art  to  Construction,"  Mr.  Jackson  deals  at  some 
length  with  an  article  of  my  own  on  Gothic  archi- 
tecture which  originally  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review  and  which  now  forms  Chapter  viii.  of  the 
present  book.  I  am  grateful  to  him  for  the  kind  way 
in  which  he  treats  my  essay,  but  I  suspect  the 
difference  between  our  points  of  view  is  more  funda- 
mental than  he  makes  out.  Professor  Simpson  ,who 
has  lately  published  a  history  of  architecture,  is 
among  the  sternest  of  the  supporters  of  the  construc- 

Y  337 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

tional  school.  "  Properly  speaking,"  he  observes, 
"  Gothic  had  no  birth.  What  is  called  the  birth  of 
Gothic  was  but  the  coming  of  age  of  Romanesque." 
The  theory  is  that  because  a  style  forms  out  of  a 
preceding  style  therefore  it  is  not  a  style  at  all.  Mr. 
Russell  Sturgis  is  on  the  same  side.  Gothic  with 
him  is  so  entirely  an  affair  of  the  material  that  he  will 
not  even  allow  the  human  share  in  it  which  Mr, 
Jackson  allows.  **  It  took  its  origin,"  he  says  of  the 
new  style,  "  in  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century, 
that  origin  being  wholly  constructional,"  Mr.  C.  H. 
Moore  goes  also  very  fully  into  the  question  of 
vaulting.  "The  Gothic  system  was  immediately 
evolved,"  he  tells  us,  '*  out  of  the  Romanesque  of 
Northern  France."  There  being  no  particular  reason, 
however,  for  stopping  at  Romanesque,  Mr.  Moore 
traces  the  style  back  to  "  the  earliest  departure  from 
the  principles  and  constructive  forms  of  the  art  of 
Imperial  Rome."  M.  Enlart  has  probably  had 
more  to  do  with  the  triumph  of  the  constructional 
theory  than  any  one  else.  His  devotion  to  the 
material  is  so  great  and  his  insensibility  to  the  human 
expressiveness  of  form  so  absolute,  that  he  is  able 
to  declare  that  Gothic  took  the  place  sans  secousse  of 
the  old  Romanesque,  and  even  that  the  new  archi- 
tecture is  "  anim^e  du  meme  esprit  que  I'art  ante- 
rieur."  What  are  we  to  think  when  we  are  told 
that  the  clusters  of  fei*vent  Gothic  points  and  the 
thin  lines  in  almost  visible  motion  that  rocket  from 
floor  to  summit  of  roof  of  Gothic  nave  and  choirs 
are  "  animated  by  the  same  spirit "  as  the  ponderous 
round-arched  vaults  of  Romanesque  ?  I  must  not 
forget  to  mention  Viollet-le-Duc's  "  Diet.  Raisonn6," 
which  treats  the  subject  in  a  more  vital  fashion  and 
is  full  of  ideas  of  interest.  But  my  last  recommen- 
dation to  any  one  wanting  to  make  acquaintance  with 
Gothic  is  first  to  saturate  his  mind  with  a  knowledge 
of  mediaeval  life,  of  the  mediaeval  boroughs  and  guilds 
and  the  mediaeval  ideal  of  citizenship,  and  then,  with 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

those  thoughts  in  his  mind,  to  stand  in  a  Gothic 
interior  and  accept  its  influence  until  the  structural 
forms  around  him  seem  the  very  utterance  of  the 
ideas  he  has  acquired, 

CHAPTER  VIII 

The  later  phases  of  Gothic  architecture  are  de- 
picted in  the  usual  histories.  Ruskin  for  ideas  and 
Fergusson  for  facts  remain  among  the  best  of  the 
authorities.  Among  recent  books  Mr.  Blomfield's 
"  History  of  the  Rise  of  Renaissance  Architecture 
in  England"  deserves  especial  attention,  and  his 
"  Studies  in  Architecture  "  should  also  be  read.  I 
also  recommend  Mr.  C.  H.  Moore's  "  Character  of 
Renaissance  Architecture  "  and  Mr.  G.  A.  Cumming's 
*'  History  of  Architecture  in  Italy."  Another  larger 
volume  which  contains  a  great  deal  of  information 
is  Mr.  Gotch's  "  Early  Renaissance  Architecture  in 
England."  The  point  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  study- 
ing the  decline  of  Gothic  and  the  rise  of  Renaissance 
art  in  England  is  that  the  English  Renaissance  is 
as  much  of  home  growth  as  of  foreign  importation. 
Quite  without  Italy's  help  we  should  have  had  a 
Renaissance  of  some  sort,  and  that  because  the 
natural  maturing  and  ripening  of  the  national 
character  was  making  for  that  end.  A  certain 
breadth  of  outlook,  a  pleasure  in  thought  for  thought's 
sake,  were  developing  from  within  the  national 
character.  They  fed  naturally  on  the  products  that 
suited  them,  and  in  due  course  came  within  the 
attraction  of  Italian  methods,  just  as  Italy,  on  the 
same  quest,  had  come  within  the  attraction  of 
classical  methods.  But  this  ripening  of  the 
national  mind  did,  before  turning  to  Italy,  attempt 
an  expression  of  itself  in  the  national  art.  Tudor 
architecture  is  pure  Northern  Renaissance.  It  is  an 
attempt  to  compose  a  style  of  horizontal  propor- 
tions out  of  existing  national  forms  of  architecture. 

339 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

That  attempt  has  not  met  with  the  attention  or 
attracted  the  interest  which  it  should  have  done. 
It  shows  two  things  :  First,  that  the  Renaissance 
movement  was  no  "  revolution  "  but  a  natural  pro- 
cess of  mental  development ;  and  second,  that  this 
process  of  mental  development  will,  even  if  left  to 
itself  and  quite  apart  from  any  classical  sugges- 
tions, express  itself  in  a  style  of  horizontal  pro- 
portions. On  the  other  hand,  it  is  important  to 
remember  in  regard  to  Italian  Gothic  that  it 
is  not  the  mere  ignorant  haphazard  style  it  is 
commonly  represented  to  be,  but  that  all  its  efforts 
and  alterations  are  directed  to  a  definite  purpose, 
and  that  the  very  purpose  which  the  Tudor  style 
afterwards  attempted  in  the  North,  namely,  the 
purpose  of  obtaining  horizontal  amplitude  and 
space  out  of  a  vertical  style  of  architecture.  M. 
Enlart  has  devoted  a  volume  to  Italian  Gothic, 
and  his  book  deserves  mention  because  of  the 
evident  influence  it  has  exerted  over  recent  English 
writers.  M.  Choisy  and  M.  Enlart  both  exert 
this  influence,  and  it  has,  I  think,  done  harm. 
Theories  and  explanations  propounded  by  men 
who  are  noted  for  their  industrious  accumulation 
of  facts  naturally  have  great  weight.  At  the  same 
time  I  would  venture  to  warn  amateurs  against 
these  writers,  because,  more  than  anything,  they 
tend,  by  advancing  small  material  and  superficial 
explanations  of  phenomena,  to  degrade  the  subject 
they  deal  with  and  rob  it  of  all  genuine,  because  of 
all  human,  interest. 

CHAPTER  IX 

In  a  sketch  of  the  whole  process  of  change  from 
classical  to  mediaeval  modes  of  thought,  the  reader 
can  do  no  better  than  study  Mr.  Henry  Osborn 
Taylor's  ^^  Classical  Heritage  of  the  Middle  Ages." 
It  is  worth  its  weight  in  gold,  and  when  he  has  read 

340 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

it  through  once  it  will  be  well  k)r  him,  instead  of 
seeking  some  other  authority,  to  read  it  through  again . 
Professor  Mahaffy's  "Greek  Life  and  Thought," 
and  his  two  other  books,  "The  Silver  Age"  and 
"  Progress  of  Hellenism,"  are  lively  and  vigorous, 
though  they  sometimes  strike  one  as  having  more 
energy  than  insight.  Then  there  is  Seignobo's  dry 
but  comprehensive  "  History  of  Mediaeval  Civilisa- 
tion," which  has  been  translated,  and  Souttar's 
"History  of  Mediaeval  Peoples."  With  regard  to 
the  Renaissance  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  advise. 
There  is,  of  course,  J.  A.  Symonds*  History,  and 
Miintz's  "  Histoire  de  I'art  pendant  la  Renaissance," 
and  "  Pr^curseurs  de  la  Renaissance ;  "  also  Miche- 
let's  seventh  volume.  On  the  subject  of  sculpture, 
Perkin's  "  Italian  Sculpture,"  "Tuscan  Sculpture," 
and  "  Handbook  of  Italian  Sculpture "  contain 
ample  information.  Herr  Bode's  "  Florentine  Sculp- 
tors "  should  be  read,  and  Lord  Balcarres'  recent 
work,  "The  Evolution  of  Italian  Sculpture."  I 
must  also  mention  Professor  Villari's  book  on  the 
same  subject,  though  I  have  not  yet  managed  to 
secure  it.  Of  the  nature  of  its  treatment  I  judge 
only  from  an  extract  given  by  Professor  Mahaffy 
in  his  "What  have  the  Greeks  done  for  Civilisa- 
tion." I  will  quote  a  line  or  two  from  that  extract : 
"  The  Greeks  had  no  means  of  expressing  Christian 
spirit  or  emotion.  Their  quest  was  for  outward 
beauty  of  form,  and  their  nature,  being  simpler, 
more  spontaneous,  and  more  harmonious  than 
ours,  could  be  adequately  expressed  in  marble. 
They  had  no  experience  of  the  mental  maladies, 
the  tortures  of  remorse,  or  the  whole  inner  life 
created  by  Christianity.  ...  In  Donatello's  day 
all  things  were  changed ;  the  faculties  of  the 
human  mind  had  been  altered  and  multiplied. 
Therefore  a  new  art  was  needed  to  represent  the 
new  inner  life.  Assuredly  Christ  and  the  Virgin 
cannot  be  chiselled  in  the  same  way  as  a  Venus  or 


THE  WORKS  OF  MAN 

an  Apollo.  Outward  beauty  was  no  longer  the  sole 
aim  of  art.  It  was  now  bound  to  express  character, 
which  is  the  mind's  outward  form.  Even  the  very 
soul  of  man,  with  all  its  load  of  new  struggles,  sorrows, 
and  uncertainties,  must  show  through  the  envelope  of 
marble."  The  reader  will  see  how  close  this  is  to  the 
line  of  thought  I  have  attempted  to  suggest  myself. 

CHAPTER  X 

With  regard  to  the  historical  aspect  of  the  Renais- 
sance the  same  books  apply  as  have  been  already 
mentioned.  For  painting,  Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle's 
great  work,  in  the  last  edition  by  Mr.  Hutton,  will 
sufficiently  map  out  the  whole  subject ;  but  I  would 
advise  that  this  rather  dry  narrative  be  inspired  and 
animated  from  time  to  time  by  infusions  of  Ruskin. 
Out  of  the  multitude  of  modern  critical  works  I 
will  select  those  only  of  Mr.  Berenson,  whose  short 
studies  of  the  Italian  schools  are  illuminating  because 
they  deal  with  large  ideas  applied  with  weight  and  a 
subtle  power  of  analysis. 

I  am  very  conscious  of  the  slight  and  sketchy 
nature  of  this  chapter  of  mine,  but  I  have  not  time 
to  work  it  up  and  fortify  it.  The  reason  it  is  allowed 
to  stand  is  that,  though  loosely  outlined,  the  idea  it 
conveys  of  the  hand-in-hand  purpose  of  art  and 
intellect  through  the  Renaissance  is,  I  think,  a  true 
one  and  not  unimportant. 

CHAPTER  XI 

As  usual  the  indispensable  clue  to  the  right  appre- 
ciation of  French  eighteenth-century  art  is  the 
understanding  of  the  life  out  of  which  it  grew.  It 
is  extremely  difficult  to  realise  that  life.  Artificiality, 
convention,  and  vestiges  of  an  old  etiquette  still 
survive  among  us  ;  but  it  has  long,  p2:haps  always 
been  a  tradition  of   English  life,  however  socially 

34^ 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

exalted,  that  it  must  not  be  wholly  divorced  from 
useful  purpose.  The  life  of  the  ancien  rigimey 
therefore,  a  life  in  which  etiquette  and  convention 
had  become  the  dominant  factors,  is  remote  from  our 
sympathy,  and  the  ideas  which  animated  that  life  are 
not  readily  intelligible  to  us.  The  best  way  to  render 
them  intelligible  is  to  read  some  of  the  memoirs, 
diaries  and  letters  of  the  day,  of  which  there  is  an 
endless  supply.  "  La  noblesse  en  France  avant  et 
depuis  1789," par  H.  de  Barth^lemy;  " La Reine  Marie 
Antoinette,"  par  Pierre  de  Nolhac  ;  "  Le  mariage  de 
Louis  Quinze  d'apr^s  des  documents  nouveaux  et 
une  correspondance  inddit,"  par  Henry  Gauthier- 
Villars  ;  the  memoirs  of  the  Duo  de  Luynes,  memoirs 
of  Saint-Simon  and  of  Marmontel,  also  Michelet's 
History,  Sainte-Beuve's  "  Portraits,"  and  Lord 
Morley's  "  Life  of  Diderot  "  are  some  of  the  books  I 
have  made  use  of ;  but  the  choice  is  unlimited.  Of 
books  on  furniture  and  decoration  there  is  also  a 
quite  unlimited  supply.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  how- 
ever, the  reader  will  find  H.  Havard's  "  Dictionnaire 
de  I'Ameublement  et  de  la  Decoration"  and  "Arts 
de  I'Ameublement ".  quite  sufficient  for  all  needs. 
What  is  of  infinitely  more  value  than  any  number  of 
books  is  a  collection  of  the  stuff  itself.  Let  us  read 
up  about  the  life  of  that  age  until  we  catch  its 
point  of  view,  then  let  us  go  to  Hertford  House 
and  stand  in  a  complete  environment  of  the  art  and 
craftsmanship  of  that  day.  Thus  shall  we  best 
realise  eighteenth-century  art  as  the  expression 
of  eighteenth-century  life. 


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